Music can be brought to the highest realms of excellence, but if it is done just for that, it is a vain attempt.  But if in that process human lives are being uplifted, then what we have done is right and then there is a noble reason for what we do.

-- Anton Armstrong

Our art form invites, enables, and requires people to feel. . . . I think we owe to humanity, to the planet, and to all of existence to put as much beauty in the world as we can.

-- Charles Bruffy

. . . music allows us to achieve the impossible -- light, longing, and eternity speak to us feeling every moment.

-- Rihards Dubra

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.  It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain.  Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

-- George Eliot

For what are we thankful for?  For all:
     The sunlight -- the shadow -- the song;
The blossoms may wither and fall,
     But the world moves in music along!
          For simple, sweet living,
               ('Tis love that doth teach it)
          A heaven forgiving
               And faith that can reach it!

-- Frank L. Stanton

Read from some humbler poet,
     Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
     Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
     And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
     Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
     The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
     That follows after prayer.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Say not, I live!"
     Unless the morning's trumpet brings
A shock of glory to your soul,
     Unless the ecstasy that sings
Through rushing worlds and insects' wings,
     Sends you upspringing to your goal,
Glad of the need for toil and strife,
     Eager to grapple hands with Life --
Say not, "I live!"

-- Angela Morgan

Thank Thee that I can hear,
Finely and keenly with the inner ear,
Below the rush and clamor of a throng
The mighty music of the under-song.
And when the day has journeyed to its rest,
Lo, as I listen, from the amber west,
Where the great organ lifts its glowing spires,
There sounds the chanting of the unseen choirs.

-- Angela Morgan

When composers begin the act of composition, they wish to reach out to something greater than they are -- to embody a feeling in a new and unique way. . . . . In the act of composition, something touches the spirit side of the composer, employing that ability to reach out beyond him or herself to something greater.

-- Weston Noble

Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven.

-- Walter Savage Landor

Music is the harmonious voice of creation; an echo of the invisible world.

-- Giuseppe Mazzini

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

-- Pable Picasso

Music is very spiritual, it has the power to bring people together.

-- Edgar Winter

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.  It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain.  Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

-- George Eliot

God, pitying the toils which our race is born to undergo, gave us the gift of song.

-- Plato

There is no truer truth obtainable by man than comes of music.

-- Robert Browning

My soul spake unto me and said, "The lantern which you carry is not yours, and the song that you sing was not composed within your heart, for even if you bear the light, you are not the light, and even if you are a lute fastened with strings, you are not the lute player."

-- Kahlil Gibran

Choirs, both church and concert, sing community when there is human diversity to be seen in the membership of the choir.  Gender, ethnicity, age-range:  these are visuals that contribute to the community and peace environment that ensembles afford.  A choir's human diversity on display is bold protest, in this case, against segregation and discrimination.   . . . Art calls forth a diverse audience and gives them deep lessons in community and peace.

-- Terry York

Choral directors, sing the truth of community, sing the truth of peace.  Sing until the fog of fear clears from our congregations and audiences.  Sing until they recognize -- and cringe at the sound of -- propaganda.  Sing with faith and its twin, creativity.  Sing with humility and its twin, courage.  To do so is to sing the gospel.

-- Terry York

All one's life is music, if one touches the notes rightly, and in time.

-- John Ruskin

Music is the soul of life asking each of us to join its chorus.

-- Marva N. Collins

The most direct means for attaching ourselves to God from this material world is through music and song.  Even if you can't sing well, sing.  Sing to yourself.  Sing in the privacy of your own home.  But sing.

-- Nachman of Bratslav

A learner must be engaged in the creation of ideas for him or herself . . . Knowledge cannot be injected into the minds like so many cc.s of medicine.  It emerges from the personal process of connecting ideas to form new ones, of adding new information to already existing perceptions and changing it.  Music and the other arts do this automatically.

-- Alexander Bernstein

. . . love is the only way we can obtain any warmth of communication in the world; and I suppose this is the truth.  The only thing is that love isn't the only way.  Art is also a way.  Communication via art.

-- Leonard Bernstein

Let us say that love is the way we have of communicating personally in the deepest way.  What art can do is extend this communication, magnify it, and carry it to vastly greater numbers of people.

-- Leonard Bernstein

This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.

-- Leonard Bernstein

I should be sorry if I only entertained them.  I wish to make them better.

-- Georg Frideric Handel

It is because of the way music feeds into our emotional lives and because of the sense of social well-being we get from sharing emotional states with others that music so frequently accompanies movements that build, and depend upon, solidarity.  This is a contingent association, to be sure, but the absence of logical necessity does not diminish the powerful role music plays in our efforts to build a better world.

-- Tracey Nicholls

Music gives me the feeling of love!  Romance!  I figure right now the world needs to come into music, singing:  'You've got beautiful music here' . . . I feel the band of love, of dreams.

-- Henry, an Alzheimer's patient

The Choir is built around the idea that art and creativity are for everybody and that it can be a force for positive changes.  We sing together to confront the forces that can tear at the heart and soul of the community.

-- Karen Mihalyi

Music alone can't change the world, BUT -- music changes people and people change the world.  It's this coordination between music and human interaction that can be powerful and profound.

-- Erin Guinup

A flower is a smile of God,
A distant echo of heaven,
A single, fleeting note
Of God's own music,
A perfectly-formed note
In his all-making harmony,
A voice full of mystery, dear Saviour,
That sings of your great power:
   Infinitely melodious,
   Sweetly harmonious
Silence of flowers,
Telling God in his grandeur.

-- St. Therese of Lisieux (trans. Felicity Leng)

Music is the easiest method of meditation.  Whoever can let himself dissolve into music has no need to seek anything else to dissolve into.

-- Osho

Music should be healing; music should uplift the soul; music should inspire.  There is no better way of getting closer to God, of rising higher towards the spirit, of attaining spiritual perfection than music, if only it is rightly understood.

-- Hazrat Inayat Khan

Music cleanses the understanding, inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it could not reach if it were left to itself.

-- Henry W. Beecher

There are certain things that have universal attributes, like music.  Something of greater magnitude is conveyed by them.  They connect us with the universal storehouse of life and knowledge.

-- Swami Paramananda

There is nothing in the world so much like prayer as music is.

-- William P. Merrill

Music has the unique ability to transform us independently of our thinking mind, to a place uninhibited by the judgments, doubts and fears that too often dictate the narration of our thoughts and self-limiting beliefs.

-- Frank Fitzpatrick

Music is one of our most powerful gateways to connect to our spiritual nature -- our divine source -- the unseen, as well as to the universe around us and those other divine beings that inhabit it with us.  I know of no other medium that can transport us as immediately, on all levels of our existence, beyond the limits of our intellect and physical body to a higher, often blissful and inexplicable state.

-- Frank Fitzpatrick

Music is, at its essence, the sound of spirit.  When created from the heart and with truth and pure intention, music is a spiritual expression of the most universal nature and the highest order.

-- Frank Fitzpatrick

   
     To this day, I still find myself in awe of the infinite combinations of words, melodies, harmonies, and rhythms that make up what we call music.  It all just amounts to a bunch of frequencies striking your eardrum, but when these frequencies vibrate in just the right way, something beyond words can happen.  I equate it to spirit whispering musical messages in my ears.

-- Freddie Ravel

Just as a musician expresses individual talent and understanding and yet blends with the swelling magnificence of the orchestra, so too does the follower of Tao remain human and yet in harmony with the universal.

-- Deng Ming-Dao

We must make ourselves the perfect instrument, much in the way a beautiful harp has all its strings adjusted.  If we are less than perfect, how will we harmonize with the universal music?

-- Deng Ming-Dao

One of the most important things that music can do, surely, is show the possibility of a better world -- a glimpse of heaven, perhaps . . .

-- Gabriel Jackson

. . . next to the word of God, nothing is so priceless and worthy of glory and praise as music.  That is, from the outset she rules all that moves human hearts . . . in such a mighty and forceful manner, that people are often governed and overwhelmed by their heart's emotions.

-- Martin Luther

Art thou troubled, music will calm thee,
Art thou weary, rest shall be thine.
Music, source of all gladness,
Heals thy sadness at her shrine,
Music ever divine.
Music calleth,with voice divine.

-- W.G. Rothery

     Music is the vehicle by which souls, individually examined and explored, speak to the world at large.  Human beings communicating directly with one another through great things speak powerfully and with one voice.

-- James Jordon

     Music is the binding stuff of community.  Community is nourished by music.  It is the grace of great things.  Without the great things, community is reduced to inter- and intrapersonal relationships that are usually built on outside perceptions rather than the soulfulness of all involved.

-- James Jordon

Whether you listen or whether you play, music refines your soul.  It is peace, emotion, expression, and the sound of the sacred.

-- Deng Ming-Dao

Music will calm you, soothe your nerves, tell you of otherworldiness. Even in the midst of great turmoil, music can bring peace to your heart.

-- Deng Ming-Dao

Music is the direct link between the soul and the divine.  The body is like a hollow reed, and music fills it with the song of the gods.

-- Deng Ming-Dao

Music describes the contours of an inward landscape that is accessible and enriching for work in the world.

-- Elaine Brown

The exciting part about being a musician is that we are artists of all of life.  Music can be a force, not a specialty.  The world has now become too dangerous for anything but the truth -- too small for anything but love.

-- Elaine Brown