“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.”
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Sergei Rachmaninoff 12
Russian composer, pianist, and conductor 1873–1943Related quotes
“So much working, reading, thinking, living to do! A lifetime is not long enough.”
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
“If your life's work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you're not thinking big enough.”
“If "thank you" is the only prayer you can utter in your lifetime, that would be enough.”
Very commonly attributed to Eckhart on the internet and some publications, the source of the first formulation however is: A Bucket of Surprises (2002) by J. John and Mark Stibbe.
Disputed
“We live only a few conscious decades, and we fret ourselves enough for several lifetimes.”
Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir
Preface, p. x
Group Theory in the Bedroom (2008)
Source: Memoirs Of A Bird In A Gilded Cage (1969), CHAPTER 1, In the beginning, p. 3
Letter to Paul Dukas (1901)
Context: I confess that I am no longer thinking in musical terms, or at least not much, even though I believe with all my heart that Music remains for all time the finest means of expression we have. It’s just that I find the actual pieces — whether they’re old or modern, which is in any case merely a matter of dates — so totally poverty-stricken, manifesting an inability to see beyond the work-table. They smell of the lamp, not of the sun. And then, overshadowing everything, there’s the desire to amaze one’s colleagues with arresting harmonies, quite unnecessary for the most part. In short, these days especially, music is devoid of emotional impact. I feel that, without descending to the level of the gossip column or the novel, it should be possible to solve the problem somehow. There’s no need either for music to make people think! … It would be enough if music could make people listen, despite themselves and despite their petty mundane troubles, and never mind if they’re incapable of expressing anything resembling an opinion. It would be enough if they could no longer recognize their own grey, dull faces, if they felt that for a moment they had been dreaming of an imaginary country, that’s to say, one that can’t be found on the map.