Quotes on Music and Sound
Inspirational music quotes from great minds
Allow yourself the time to contemplate as you peruse these quotes on music, sound, healing and life…
The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Thought allied fearlessly with purpose becomes creative force. - James Allen
Life is a song. It has its own rhythm of harmony. It is a symphony of all things which exist in major and minor keys of Polarity. It blends the discords, by opposites, into harmony which unites the whole into a grand symphony of life. To learn through experience in this life, to appreciate the symphony and lessons of life and to blend with the whole, is the object of our being here. - Dr. Randolph Stone
Do you know that our soul is composed of harmony. - Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks (1451-1519)
The Medicine Man occupied the honored role of priest and physician to his tribe. They understood that healing was done by the intercession of celestial spirits. Music was used as the bridge between these planes. Thus we see why music was religious in nature, and music was looked upon as a sacred art. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
All things are aggregations of atoms that dance & by their movement produce sound. When the rhythm of the dance changes, the sound it produces also changes… Each atom perpetually sings its song, and the sound at every moment creates dense subtle forms. - Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969)
Music is the mediator between the life of the senses and the life of the spirit. - Beethoven (1770-1827)
Man’s music is seen as a means of restoring the soul, as well as confused and discordant bodily afflictions, to the harmonic proportions that it shares with the world soul of the cosmos. - Plato (Timaeus) (429-347 BC)
By harmony all phenomena are formed and sustained. There is a scientific statement to the effect that this earth is a vast harmonic wave system that is built and sustained by unheard music. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
I believe that from the earth emerges a musical poetry that is by the nature of its sources tonal. I believe that these sources cause to exist a phonology of music, which evolves from the universal, and is known as the harmonic series. - Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
Each celestial body, in fact each and every atom, produces a particular sound on account of its movement, its rhythm or vibration. All these sounds and vibrations form a universal harmony in which each element, while having it’s own function and character, contributes to the whole. - Pythagoras (569-475 BC)
If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
If you learn music, you’ll learn history. If you learn music, you’ll learn mathematics. If you learn music, you’ll learn most all there is to learn. - Edgar Cayce (1877-1945)
The history of harmony is the history of the development of the human ear, which has gradually assimilated, in their natural order, the successive intervals of the harmonic series. - Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979)
Harmony sinks deep into the recesses of the soul and takes its strongest hold there, bringing grace also to the body & mind as well. Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything. It is the essence of order… - Plato (429-347)
The magic of “Musical Medicine” will come into its own. The application of such healing potencies will not be limited just to man’s body and mind. It will be an agency for building and healing his soul as well. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
Music should be healing, music should uplift the soul, music should inspire; then there is no better way of getting closer to God, of rising higher towards the spirit, of attaining spiritual perfection, only if it is rightly understood. - Hazrat Inayat Kahn (1882-1927)
He that divines the secret of my music is freed from the unhappiness that haunts the whole world of men. - Beethoven (1770-1827)
Music is the art of the prophets, the only art that can calm the agitations of the soul. - Martin Luther (1483-1546)
The score of Pelleas and Melisande by Debussy, heralds that which will lift man from the earthly to the celestial, from the mortal to the immortal. Once again the ways of the artist and healer are merging. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
Music can minister to minds diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with its sweet oblivious antidote, cleanse the full bosom of all perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart. - Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
The prime objective of all Initiatory music in the Temples of Antiquity was to bring about physical purification and renewal, mental stimulation and alertness, spiritual exhilaration and Illumination. - St. Ambrose (who brought the diatonic scale of Pythagoras to the Church) (340-397)
Pythagoras based musical education in the first place on certain melodies and rhythm that exercised a healing, a purifying influence on the human actions and passions, restoring ‘Pristine Harmony’ of the souls’ faculties. He applied the same means to the curing of diseases of both body and mind… - Porphyry (233-309) 2nd generation disciple of Pythagoras
…man is a musical being. His origin is in the spoken Word. By sound was he sustained and by music he evolved. One day he will recognize music as a vital factor in the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual evolution of the whole human race. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
People say that the soul, on hearing the song of creation, entered the body, but in reality the soul itself was the song. - Hafiz (1320-1390)
Music is the harmonious voice of creation: an echo of the invisible world, one note of the divine concord that the entire universe is destined one day to sound. - Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872)
What makes us feel drawn to music is that our whole being is music: our mind and body, the nature in which we live, the nature which has made us, all that is beneath and around us, it is all music. - Hazrat Inyat Khan (Sufi Master) (1882-1927)
See deep enough, and you see musically; the heart of nature being everywhere music… - Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
All sounds of the earth are like music. - Oscar Hammerstein (1895-1960)
The octave formed a circle and gave our noble earth its form. - Pythagoras (569-475 BC)
Listening, is nothing less than our ‘royal route’ to the Divine. - Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis (1920-2001)
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st. But in his motion like an angel sings. - William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Music is well said to be the voice of Angels. - Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
The wonders of the music of the future will be of a higher & wider scale and will introduce many sounds that the human ear is now incapable of hearing. Among these new sounds will be the glorious music of angelic chorales. As men hear these they will cease to consider Angels as figments of their imagination. - Mozart (1756-1791)
By turns the nine delight to sing. - Homer’s Hymn to Apollo (8th Century BC)
Sounds are the echo of the “Harmony of the Spheres” which man took into himself when he came down from the divine-spiritual world into the physical world. - Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)
The position of the planetary bodies at the moment of birth is a musical score done in planetary symbols of the heavenly harmonics and dissonances as these are played into the life of the incarnating ego. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
I tell you truly, when we are born, we enter the world with the sound of God in our ears, even the singing of the vast chorus of the sky, and the holy chant of the stars in their fixed rounds; it is the Holy Stream of Sound. - Edmond Bordeaux Szekely (1900-1979)
In the germ, when the first trace of life begins to stir, music is the nurse of the soul; it murmurs in the ear, and the child sleeps; the tones are companions of his dreams- they are the world in which he lives. - Bettina Skrzypczak (1962- )
The pre-natal environment …an image of the womb as an auditory paradise, a condition of “super hearing” to which we aspire throughout our lives to return. - Tim Wilson (contemporary)
Ah, music, sacred tongue of God! I hear thee calling and I come. - Confucius (551-479)
Listen, my son, to the voice of your God and open wide the ears of your heart. - St. Benoit Founder of the Gregorian chant (9th Century)
The ear collects the spiraling energy from the cosmos, this energy gives life to man and we see this vitality in the light which shines forth from our eyes. - Anonymous Tibetan Medical Doctor
A wise man seeks by music to strengthen his soul: the thoughtless one uses it to stifle his fears. - Confucius (551-479 BC)
The highest mission of music is to serve as a link between God and Man. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
…music is the living God in our bosoms. - Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
The profound meaning of music’s essential aim… is to produce a communion, a union of man with his fellow man with the Supreme Being. - Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
All great musical composers have been connected, consciously or unconsciously, with this source of music-a fact that enabled them to become masters of their art. Their compositions contain specific messages brought through from high realms for the definite purpose of bettering world conditions and bestowing upon mankind greater illumination. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
Some of the Fathers went so far as to esteem the love of music a sign of predestination, as a thing divine, and reserved for the felicities of heaven itself. - Sir William Temple (1628-1699)
Musicians must possess firm devotion to God and must be pure in mind and body, for unless they realize the spiritual power of music, they will be unable to gauge the science underlying their art. - Ethel Rosenthal, “The History of Indian Music” 1931
Ancient tradition always depicts a true Chinese musician as blind. Esoterically, this implies that his gift of the divine art is so completely guided by, and dedicated to, hosts of the celestial guardians, that both his sight and consciousness are focused above and beyond the objective world. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
To the Greeks, the supreme function of music was to “praise the gods and educate the youth”. In Egypt… Initiatory music was heard only in Temple rites because it carried the vibratory rhythms of other worlds and of a life beyond the mortal. - Plutarch (46-120 AD)
The highest goal of music is to connect one’s soul to their Divine Nature, not entertainment. - Pythagoras (569- 475 BC)
During the reign of Rameses III (the Twentieth Dynasty) Egypt saw a flowering of its civilization and the harp became the royal instrument of priests and kings. Often times they had as many as 21 strings. Under the manipulation “the Minstrels of the Gods” the music was of rare potency. “Musical Medicine” was an actuality. Healing, along with numerous so-called “supernatural feats” was attributed to this art. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
Sound is the force of creation, the true whole. Music then, becomes the voice of the great cosmic oneness and therefore the optimal way to reach this final state of healing. - Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927)
There is no agent so powerful in giving us real rest as true music… It does for heart and mind, and also for the body, what sleep does for the body alone. - Auguste Gratry (1805-1872)
The famous Greek physician Hippocrates administered musical treatments to his patients in 400 B.C. Although this type of treatment did not originate with him, it found in him an exponent of the highest order. With the increasing materialism of Western civilization, the major tenants of ancient musical therapy have been either forgotten or discarded. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
Eventually, musical therapists will compose prescriptions after the manner of a pharmacist… - Dr. Ira Altschuler (1942)
Surely again, to heal men’s wounds by music’s spell. - Euripedes, Medea (480-406 BC)
Every illness is a musical problem-the healing, a musical solution… - Novalis, The Encyclopedia (1772-1801)
I am equally excited about the possibilities that music making holds for all people and it’s ability to heal what seems to me a chronic imbalance in modern life. - Paul Winter “Music-Physician for Times to Come” (1939- )
We trust that the magic of sound, will contribute an ever greater measure to the relief of human suffering. - Robert Assagioli M.D. (1888-1974) Founder of Transpersonal Psychology
It has been found that musical vibrations make their impact upon the entire body, being picked up by the nerves, spinal column, and even by the bones. This is why people who are deaf can react to music. It has also been demonstrated that music affects the pulse, respiration, and blood pressure; but it’s deepest effects, and those from which most of it’s curative properties are derived, are mental and emotional. - Doren Antrim (Music Is Medicine) current
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze by the sweet power of music. - Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. - Rumi (1207-1273)
Love is the keynote, Joy is the music, Knowledge is the performer, the Infinite All is the composer and audience. - Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950)
Of all of the arts music is the perfect art, because it strikes the soul without the aid of the intellect. - William Kindler (contemporary)
In the etheric body are centered the forces animating man’s physical vehicle, so disease is evidenced in the etheric before it manifests in the physical. The etheric, composed of finer, more attenuated substances than the physical, is corresponding amenable to vibratory influences. It is upon the former that harmony and rhythm have the most potent effect. Good music readjusts its molecular structure in accordance with the original divine plan, the archetype, and refines and accentuates it’s vibratory currents. All forms of beauty and harmony increase this regenerating process. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
Music is the language of some other state, born of memory. For what can wake the soul’s strong instinct of some other world like music? - Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802- 1838)
Music is the mysterious key of memory, unlocking the hoarded treasures of the heart. Tones, at times, in music, will bring back forgotten things. - Lord Edward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873)
Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies. It wanders perturbedly through the halls and galleries of the memory, and is often heard again, distinct and living, as when it first displaced the wavelets of the air.” - Bulwer (1803-1873)
Oh music! Thou who bringest the receding waves of eternity nearer to the weary heart of man as he stands upon the shores and longs to cross over! Art thou the evening breeze of life, or the morning air of the future one?- Jean Paul (1763-1825)
Music… a kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads to the edge of the Infinite. - Carlyle (1795-1881)
Music expresses that which can not be put into words and that which cannot remain silent. - Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
The Medicine Man, taking his music with him, is passing quietly into the Great Silence, where the old songs were “Received in Dreams” by “inner-plane communication. - Francis Densmore (1867-1957) friend of Geronimo
As the attuning of music arouses emotions in the body to an unusual degree, well that there be choices made regarding what emotions are aroused and what character of music. - Edgar Cayce (1877-1945)
Emotions of any kind can be evoked by melody and rhythm; therefore music has the power to form character. - Aristotle (384-322 BC)
Deeply listening to music opens up new avenues of research I’d never even dreamed of. I feel from now on music should be an essential part of every analysis. - Dr. Carl Jung (1875-1961)
In ancient times music was the foundation of all the sciences. Education was begun with music with the persuasion that nothing could be expected of a man who was ignorant of music. - Cicero (106-43 BC)
Now we must learn to judge a society by its sounds… - Jacques Attali, (1943- )
It struck me recently, that one should really consider the sequence of a protein molecule about to fold into a precise geometric form as a line of melody written in a canon form & so designed by Nature to fold back into itself, creating harmonic chords of interaction consistent with biological function. - Anfinsen (1916-1995) (Renowned Biochemist/Nobel Prize Winner)
Consciousness is somehow a by-product of the simultaneous, high frequency firing of neurons in different parts of the brain. It’s the meshing of these frequencies that generates consciousness, just as tones from individual instruments produce the rich, complex, & seamless sounds of a symphony orchestra. - Francis Crick (1916-2004) (Molecular Biologist/Co-Discoverer of DNA and its significance for information transfer in living material)
At a certain stage of our progressive attainment, every Initiate undergoes an “Illumination by Sound” in which the Music of the Spheres becomes to us a living reality. When the magical powers of sound are rediscovered and scientifically directed to the specific purpose of healing… and when man has learned how to release the mantraic powers embodied in such inspired utterances, he will master the energies transcending even those unleashed by the atomic physicist of today. They will be energies of yet another and higher dimension. - Corinne Heline (1882-1975)
Insanity is the rebellion of a person against certain experiences over which he has no control. The conscious mind center in the cortex (upper brain) is the area where mental disease becomes established. The seat of feelings and emotions is in the lower brain. The latter it appears, is not involved in mental maladies. Music affects and influences a patient through this lower brain center. Musical therapy meets NO barriers in mental derangement cases as does the written or spoken word that works through the upper or conscious area. - Dr. Altschuler (1942)
A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor, and he should not build houses in which he cannot live. – Igor Stravinsky
Whoever knows the mystery of vibrations indeed knows all things. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
ENERGY is the real substance behind the appearance of matter and forms. - Dr. Randolph Stone
After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music.- Aldous Huxley
I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be. - Albert Einstein
What you run away from will chase you and what you chase will run away from you... - H. Baba
Without music, life would be a mistake. - Friedrich Nietzsche
The greatest illusion is that mankind has limitations... - Robert Monroe
A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor, and he should not build houses in which he cannot live. - Igor Stravinsky
Consciousness is somehow a by-product of the simultaneous, high frequency firing of neurons in different parts of the brain. It’s the meshing of these frequencies that generates consciousness, just as tones from individual instruments produce the rich, complex, & seamless sounds of a symphony orchestra. - Francis Crick
In ancient times music was the foundation of all the sciences. Education was begun with music with the persuasion that nothing could be expected of a man who was ignorant of music. - Cicero
Deeply listening to music opens up new avenues of research I’d never even dreamed of. I feel from now on music should be an essential part of every analysis. - Carl Jung
Emotions of any kind can be evoked by melody and rhythm; therefore music has the power to form character. - Aristotle
Music expresses that which can not be put into words and that which cannot remain silent. - Victor Hugo
Music… a kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads to the edge of the Infinite. - Thomas Carlyle
Of all of the arts music is the perfect art, because it strikes the soul without the aid of the intellect. - William Kindler
Love is the keynote, Joy is the music, Knowledge is the performer, the Infinite All is the composer and audience. - Sri Aurobindo
It has been found that musical vibrations make their impact upon the entire body, being picked up by the nerves, spinal column, and even by the bones. This is why people who are deaf can react to music. It has also been demonstrated that music affects the pulse, respiration, and blood pressure; but it’s deepest effects, and those from which most of it’s curative properties are derived, are mental and emotional. - Doren Antrim
If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. - Albert Einstein
One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain. - Bob Marley
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. - Plato
We are slowed down sound and light waves. A walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in scared biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music. - Albert Einstein
There will come a time when a diseased condition will not be described as it is today by physicians and psychologists, but it will be spoken of in musical terms, as one would speak of a piano that was out of tune. - Rudolf Steiner
Thank you in advance for giving proper credit with back-link to our site or page in case you wish to utilize any of these. We obtained some of these inspirational quotes on music with kind permission from Dr. James Hopkins at Pythagorean Harmonix Healing