“It is with philosophy as with just intonation on a piano, if you get everything quite straight and on all fours in one department, in perfect tune, it is delightful so long as you keep well in the middle of the key; but as soon as you modulate you find the new key is out of tune and the more remotely you modulate the more out of tune you get.”

Philosophy and Equal Temperament
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XX - First Principles

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is with philosophy as with just intonation on a piano, if you get everything quite straight and on all fours in one …" by Samuel Butler?
Samuel Butler photo
Samuel Butler 232
novelist 1835–1902

Related quotes

Rob Sheffield photo

“Sometimes great tunes happen to bad times, and when the bad time is over, not all the tunes get to move on with you.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“When you dance with the devil, you don't get to pick the tune.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Ravi Shankar photo

“Thank you, if you appreciate the tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more.”

Ravi Shankar (1920–2012) Indian musician and sitar player

To the audience at The Concert for Bangladesh (1971)
Variant: Thank you, if you appreciate the tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more.

Wolfgang Flür photo
Peggy Moran photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Nigella Lawson photo
Thomas Gainsborough photo

“One part of a picture ought to be like the first part of a tune, that you guess what follows, and that makes the second part of the tune, and so I'm done..”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote from Gainsborough's letter to his friend William Jackson of Exeter, from Bath, Feb. 1768; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 383 (Appendix A - Letter V)
1755 - 1769

Helder Camara photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“It always seemed to me they’re sort of alike,” he said, “magic and music. Spells and tunes. For one thing, you have to get them just exactly right.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

“Darkrose and Diamond” (p. 110)
Earthsea Books, Tales from Earthsea (2001)

Related topics