Not only is music a beautiful and sublime science, the study of which ennobles and purifies the mind of its votary, but how many and excellent are its ministries to others!
Every man is full of music; but it is not every man that knows how to bring it out.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Music is a science that teaches how sound, under certain measures of time and tune, may be produced, and so ordered and disposed, as, either in consonance, or succession, or both, they may raise various sensations from the height of rapture even to melancholy or distraction.
WELLINS CALCOTT, Thoughts Moral and Divine
Music is the link between earth and heaven.
The dignity of Art appears perhaps most conspicuously in Music; for in Music there is no material to be deducted. It is wholly form and intrinsic value, and it raises and ennobles all that it expresses.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
The music, yearning like a God in pain.
JOHN KEATS, "The Eve of Saint Agnes"
Music recalls a state of feeling, and not merely a series of incidents. When we listen to the long-forgotten melody, we do not review the scenes and actions of our childhood in succession, but we become for the moment children once again.
ARTHUR HELPS, Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
Music is the universal language of mankind — poetry their universal pastime and delight.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, Outre-Mer
- O Music! language of the soul,
- Of love, of God to man;
- Bright beam from heaven thrilling,
- That lightens sorrow's weight.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE, "Apostrophe," Imogen and Other Poems
If we consider Music merely as an entertainment, doubtless, the author of all good designed the pleasing harmony and melody of sounds (among other purposes) to heighten the innocent pleasures of human life, and to alleviate and dispel its cares. When we are oppressed with sorrow and grief, it can enliven and exhilerate our drooping spirits. When we are elated, and as it were intoxicated with excessive joy, (for joy may be excessive and even dangerous) it can moderate the violence of the passions, bring us down from the giddy height, and reduce us to a state of tranquility: If inflamed with anger, or boiling with rage, it can soften us into pity, or melt us into compassion. In a word, hatred, malice, envy, and all the hideous group of infernal passions, which are at once the torment and disgrace of humanity, flee before this powerful charmer.
WELLINS CALCOTT, Thoughts Moral and Divine
Toyish airs please trivial ears.
Words must ever sound so feeble in attempting to express the magic power of melody.
ARTHUR HELPS, Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
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