## Notable Musicians and Their Quotes (Chronological Order) - [**Ludwig van Beethoven** (1770-1827)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ludwig-van-Beethoven): Composer who bridged the Classical and Romantic eras - "Do not only practise your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine." *(Letter to Emilie M., Teplitz, July 17, 1812)* - [**Claude Debussy** (1862-1918)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Debussy): French composer who broke the rules of harmony - "There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law." *(Conversations with Ernest Guiraud, 1889-90, recorded by Maurice Emmanuel)* - [**Pablo Casals** (1876-1973)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pablo-Casals): Cellist who brought Bach's suites back to the world - "For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner... I go to the piano, and I play two preludes and fugues of Bach. It is a sort of benediction on the house." *(Joys and Sorrows, 1970)* - [**Igor Stravinsky** (1882-1971)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Igor-Stravinsky): Composer of The Rite of Spring - "The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit." *(Poetics of Music, Harvard Norton Lectures 1939-40)* - [**Duke Ellington** (1899-1974)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Duke-Ellington): Bandleader and composer of over a thousand works - "Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one." *(Music Is My Mistress, 1973)* - [**Louis Armstrong** (1901-1971)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-Armstrong): Trumpeter who shaped jazz itself - "What we play is life." *(Interview with Richard Meryman, Life, April 15, 1966)* - [**Leonard Bernstein** (1918-1990)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonard-Bernstein): Conductor, composer, and teacher - "This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before." *(Address at a United Jewish Appeal benefit, November 25, 1963, days after the JFK assassination)* - [**Charles Mingus** (1922-1979)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Mingus): Bassist and composer - "Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity." *(Mainliner magazine, July 1977; confirmed at charlesmingus.com)* - [**John Coltrane** (1926-1967)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Coltrane): Saxophonist of A Love Supreme - "My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being." *(Interview with Frank Kofsky, 1966)* - [**Nina Simone** (1933-2003)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nina-Simone): Singer, pianist, and civil rights voice - "An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times." *(Filmed interview, c. 1969, featured in What Happened, Miss Simone?, 2015)* - [**Leonard Cohen** (1934-2016)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonard-Cohen): Poet and songwriter - "There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." *(“Anthem,” The Future, 1992)* - [**Bob Dylan** (1941-present)](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2016/dylan/facts/): Songwriter and Nobel laureate in Literature - "Songs are unlike literature. They're meant to be sung, not read." *(Nobel Lecture, 2017)* - [**Joni Mitchell** (1943-present)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joni-Mitchell): Songwriter and painter - "Nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint a Starry Night again, man!' He painted it and that was it." *(Stage remark on Miles of Aisles, 1974)* - [**Bob Marley** (1945-1981)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bob-Marley): Reggae's global voice - "One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain." *(“Trench Town Rock,” 1971)* - [**David Bowie** (1947-2016)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Bowie): Restless reinventor of popular music - "Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don't feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting." *(Filmed interview in Inspirations, dir. Michael Apted, 1997)* - [**Prince** (1958-2016)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Prince-singer-and-songwriter): Multi-instrumentalist and songwriter - "Albums, like books and black lives, still matter." *(Presenting Album of the Year, 57th Grammy Awards, February 8, 2015)* - [**Victor Wooten** (1964-present)](https://victorwooten.com/bio): Bassist and music educator - "Never lose the groove in order to find a note." *(The Music Lesson, 2008)* ## Related - [[Programmers Quotes]] - [[Spiritual Leaders Quotes]] - [[Dogs Quotes]] - [[How To Get Started]]