Saturday, April 24, 2010


'Tis not the air I wished to play,
The strain I wished to sing;
My wilful spirit slipped away
And struck another string.
I neither wanted smile nor tear,
Bright joy nor bitter woe,
But just a song that sweet and clear,
Though haply sad, might flow.

-- Charlotte Bronte
(in The Things That Matter:
An Anthology of Women's Spiritual Poetry,
edited by Julia Neuberger)

Saturday, April 17, 2010


Music is essentially useless, as life is.

-- George Santayana
(in Notations: Quotations on Music,
edited by Sallye Leventhal)

Saturday, April 10, 2010


The world is no more than the Beloved's single face;
In the desire of the One to know its own beauty, we exist.

Each place, each moment, sings its particular song
of not-being and being.

-- Ghalib
(in The Enlightened Heart,
edited by Stephen Mitchell)

Saturday, April 3, 2010


Music is making manifest to our dull ears the divine harmony of the universe, and through music, we read the universal.

-- Elbert Hubbard
(in Music: A Book of Quotations,
edited by Herb Galewitz)