Inspiring Quotes by Musicians: Words of Wisdom from the Heart of Music

"The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between."

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"Music can change the world because it can change people."

- Bono

"Writing music is not so much inspiration as hard work."

- George Gershwin

"Music does bring people together. It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves: We are the same."

- John Denver

"We’re musicians. We make music for a living. It’s that simple. Nothing else matters."

- Eddie Van Halen

"Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal."

- Igor Stravinsky

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything."

- Plato

"Where words fail, music speaks."

- Hans Christian Andersen

"A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one."

- Dmitri Shostakovich

"I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music."

- Billy Joel

"If you play music with passion and love and honesty, then it will nourish your soul, heal your wounds and make your life worth living. Music is its own reward."

- Sting

"The true beauty of music is that it connects people. It carries a message, and we, the musicians, are the messengers."

- Roy Ayers

"Music is the universal language of mankind."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others."

- James Taylor

"Don’t let your music be defined by genre labels."

- Bonobo

"Musicians want to be the loud voice for so many quiet hearts."

- Billy Joel

"Be your own artist, and always be confident in what you’re doing. If you’re not going to be confident, you might as well not be doing it."

- Aretha Franklin

"Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art."

- Claude Debussy

"Music is the divine messenger between heaven and the human."

- Beethoven

"Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there."

- Miles Davis

"One thing I’ve learned is that I’m not the owner of my talent; I’m the manager of it."

- Madonna

"Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart."

- Pablo Casals

"As a DJ, people expect a certain sound and a certain danceability for the music. As a producer, I really like to let go of any rules that may exist."

- Armin van Buuren

"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents."

- Ludwig van Beethoven

"To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist."

- Robert Schumann

"The goal is to try and make the perfect song. Which of course will never happen."

- Chris Martin

"For every hour of recording, have two hours of laughter in the studio."

- Quincy Jones

"I decided long ago never to walk in anyone’s shadow; if I fail, or if I succeed at least I did as I believe."

- Whitney Houston

"No one worries about genre when they’re dancing. They’re not asking themselves, ‘Is this song a dubstep song?'"

- Skrillex

"It's a great thing about being a musician; you don't stop until the day you die, you can improve. So it's a wonderful thing to do."

- Marcus Miller

"Just as Jesus created wine from water, we humans are capable of transmuting emotion into music."

- Carlos Santana

"Music was a vector we wanted to build a universe around."

- Thomas Bangalter, Daft Punk

"Music is by far the most wonderful method we have to remind us each day of the power of personal accomplishment."

- Chris S. Salazar

"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

- Berthold Auerbach

"I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well."

- J.S. Bach

"Imagination creates reality."

- Richard Wagner

"A musician should only sound like what they do, and no two musicians sound the same. It’s an individual-feel thing, you know?"

- Dave Grohl

"If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow."

- Beyoncé

"One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."

- Bob Marley

"If you want to get unusual results, work fast and work cheap, because there’s more of a chance that you’ll get somewhere that nobody else did."

- Brian Eno

"Musicians don’t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them."

- Louis Armstrong

"Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue."

- Plato

"The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you."

- BB King

"You can’t knock on opportunity’s door and not be ready."

- Bruno Mars

"I’ve experienced tons of failure. I’ve been making music for 30 years, and I’d say failure and success have happened in equal measure."

- Moby

"There’s a tremendous power in using the least amount of information to get a point across."

- Rick Rubin

"The wise musicians are those who play what they can master."

- Duke Ellington

"Lose your dreams and you might lose your mind."

- Mick Jagger

"Music is well said to be the speech of angels."

- Thomas Carlyle

"Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"At the risk of sounding hopelessly romantic, love is the key element. I really love to play with different musicians who come from different cultural backgrounds."

- John McLaughlin

"There was no one near to confuse me, so I was forced to become original."

- Franz Joseph Haydn

"I would rather write 10,000 notes than a single letter of the alphabet."

- Ludwig van Beethoven

"Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people."

- Prince

"What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do."

- Bob Dylan

"Music is the strongest form of magic."

- Marilyn Manson

"The best musicians are people who never considered themselves to be artists or musicians."

- Aphex Twin

"Less is more."

- Rone

"In the right context, you can make ugly sounds (…) feel right at home."

- Flume

"I’ve spent my life trying to make things simpler. Because I find ultimately that complicated doesn’t reach the heart."

- Hans Zimmer

"Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist."

- Franz Liszt

"Because my musical training has been limited, I've never been restricted by what technical musicians might call a song."

- Neil Diamond

"The first mistake of art is to assume that it’s serious."

- Lester Bangs

"Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast, to soften rocks or bend a knotted oak."

- William Congreve

"All musicians are potential band leaders."

- Thelonious Monk

"Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted."

- John Lennon

"I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones."

- John Cage

"The truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away."

- Elvis Presley

"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."

- Igor Stravinsky

"Life is what happens when you’re making other plans."

- John Lennon

"I’m trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It’s so easy to get turned."

- Elvis Presley

"Whenever I felt happy about having discovered something, the first encounter, not only with the public, with other musicians, with specialists, etc, was that they rejected it."

- Karlheinz Stockhausen

"Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong."

"The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought."