Quotes about singing (1451 quotes, page 2)

“Liza Minelli said she can't sing well enough those "special songs" of her late mother, Judy Garland, so she doesn't sing them at all. The award-winning entertainer said she'd "rather present a first-rate version of myself than a second-rate version of Mama."”

Liza Minnelli (1946) American actress and singer

As paraphrased and quoted in "News Spotlight," https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=S8cxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PIYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6062%2C6382171 The Kingsport Daily News (December 11, 1974), p. 9

“[The country singer] sings more sincere than most entertainers, because the hillbilly was raised tougher than most entertainers. The people who has been raised something like the way the hillbilly has, knows what he is singing about and appreciates it. For what he is singing, is the hopes, and prayers, and dreams and experiences of what some call the "common people." I call them the "best people," because they are the ones that the world is made up most of. They're really the ones who make things tick, wherever they are in this country, or in other country.”

Hank Williams (1923–1953) American country music singer

People , World , Dreams , Hope

“Replying to Anatolii Kirillovich and Ilya Savelievich to their jokes about Aurica Rotaru during one of the rehearsals in Krasnodar [Russia] ('93):
- One more time, one can't here Aurica!
- Well, she is echoing in Moldavian…
- She is not echoing in Moldavian. I'll show you, khokhols!! Just sing, Aurica.
- Well, I am not singing in the beginning…”

Sofia Rotaru (1947) Ukrainain soviet and Ukrainian musician, singer, songwriter, actress, author of Moldavian origin

I'm telling you: sing.
Source: Sofia Rotaru's sister, also singer, back-stage vocal in 1993
Source: a Russian term used to describe a style of man's haircut that features a lock of hair sprouting from the top or the front of an otherwise closely shaven head. The word is also commonly used mostly by Russians as a derogatory name for Ukrainians, as it was a common haircut of Ukrainian Cossacks. [Sofia Rotaru is Ukrainian national, although of Moldavian origin considering herself also Russian]

Time

“When I was a little kid I thought I would grow up to be black and sing jazz in nightclubs.”

Molly Ringwald (1968) American actress, singer, dancer, and author

As quoted in Funny Ladies: The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women (2001) by Bill Adler, p. 47

“No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and the hopes, the loves and the hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement, it is the dogma of a few, and not the faith of the multitude.”

James Connolly (1868–1916) Irish republican and socialist leader

Songs of Freedom by Irish Authors (1907) Introduction. Revolutionary Song https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1907/xx/revsong.htm

Love , Fear , Faith , Hope

“Sing, riding's a joy! For me I ride.”

Robert Browning Men and Women

Men and Women (1855), The last Ride together, vii.

Joy

“We can't be The Beatles. I can't shine their shoes. I can't sing as well as Paul or John. I can't write those kind of songs. But they would die in my armour and my eight-inch platform heels, and Paul can't spit fire, so there you have it.”

Gene Simmons (1949) Israeli-born American rock bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor

Mojo magazine (December 2009), p. 40.

Shoe

“In a way, I suppose you could say my experience is quite limited. For example, I never locked Oliver Cromwell in a broom closet while singing "Waltzing Matilda." I never sawed a television in half, although I once saw Wendy O. Williams saw a guitar. I never played a decent game of jacks. I never played poker with a toothless one-eyed pirate who kept picking his teeth with a Bowie knife to distract me, while his parrot looked over my shoulder and told him what cards I had by using an elaborate code involving vomiting, chirping, and sea chanteys.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

"I'm Sorry"
Lyrics, Happy Hour (1992)

Way , Game , Sea

“An exile from home splendour dazzles in vain,
Oh give me my lowly thatched cottage again;
The birds singing gayly, that came at my call,
Give me them, and that peace of mind dearer than all.”

John Howard Payne (1791–1852) American actor and writer

Home, Sweet Home (1822), from the opera of "Clari, the Maid of Milan", reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Peace , Home , Bird

“What can I write about Vytautas Juozapaitis? Months ago, a singer with this same name gave one of the most Mozartean accounts of Don Giovanni I've ever experienced: a lean, yet warm sound, exciting and a little on the dangerous side - utterly (and wonderfully) self-absorbed. The man singing Giorgio Germont could not possibly have been this same artist. This was Verdi singing of the highest order - as if to the manor born. A molten, rich expressivity and attention to Verdian line that in its size, detail and musicality recalled the greats: Gorin, Merrill… you get the idea. The name may not trip off American tongues with ease… yet, but in an era often thought bereft of Verdian voices Juozapaitis is the real deal. Every moment of his Germont was filled passion and, like all of the cast members, every word of the Italian was naturally produced and understandable. Mama mia this man's got it!”

Vytautas Juozapaitis (1963) Lithuanian opera singer

Paolo Padillo, "A Traviata of Note: Teatro Lirico d'Europa". Opera - L (March, 2004) http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0403d&L=opera-l&F=&S=&P=15287

Music , Idea , Understanding , Nature

“I've been living in New York for about seven years and a lot of the people that I started singing with don't sing any more, don't write any more. So the fact that I can still do that that's kind of a gift, that's what I sort of stay focused on.”

Lana Del Rey (1985) American singer-songwriter

Evening Standard (24 January 2012), p. 13

People

“I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all — the colleges I mean — like an opera.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Letter to Katharine Tynan (25 August 1888)

People , Beauty , Dreams

“I have an equal right to make poems as you have to pray, I have the same right to sing for my bread as you to beg for it. Are not hymns and sequences but other kinds of odes and elegiacs? And are not the psalms of David poems to the good God?”

Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320–1380) Welsh poet

Cyn rheitied i mi brydu
Ag i tithau bregethu,
A chyn iawned ym glera
Ag I tithau gardota.
Pand englynion ac odlau
Yw'r hymnau a'r segwensiau?
A chywyddau i Dduw lwyd
Yw sallwyr Dafydd Broffwyd.
"Y Bardd a'r Brawd Llwyd" (The Poet and the Grey Brother), line 53; translation from Dafydd ap Gwilym (trans. Nigel Heseltine) Twenty-Five Poems (Banbury: The Piers Press, 1968) p. 42.

God

“[Ibn Battuta’s eyewitness account of the Sultan’s arranging the enslaved girls’ marriages with Muslims on a large scale on the occasion of the two Ids, confirms the statement of Abbas:] “First of all, daughters of Kafir (Hindu) Rajas captured during the course of the year, come and sing and dance. Thereafter they are bestowed upon Amirs and important foreigners. After this daughters of other Kafirs dance and sing… the Sultan gives them to his brothers, relatives, sons of Maliks etc. On the second day the durbar is held in a similar fashion after Asr. Female singers are brought out… the Sultan distributes them among the Mameluke Amirs. On the third day relatives of the Sultan are married and they are given rewards. On the sixth day male and female slaves are married. On the seventh day he (the Sultan) gives charities with great liberality.””

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they.
Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

Marriage , Girl , Fashion , Dance

“Back around 1971, I was playing in a bar in Chicago one night, and after the show, I was packing up my guitar and stuff, and I was walking out the door, and a little guy stopped me. And he said, "Arlo, before you leave, I wanna sing you a song." I said "Come on man, I don't wanna hear no songs. I hate songs. I don't even like my songs! Why should I like your songs?" I was just tired, I wanted to get out of there, I was being a butt-head. He said, "Arlo, I just wanna sing you one song." I said, "Tell you what. Buy me beer. I'll sit here and drink it. As long as it lasts, you can do whatever you want." He said, "That sounds like a good deal."”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

I said "It does?" It turned out to be one of the finer beers of my entire life.
Arlo talking about his first meeting with Steve Goodman, who would perform to him "The City of New Orleans" (Live in Sydney)

Life , Hate , Guy , Drink

“It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefoot friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

Memoirs (1796)

Idea

“They always ask me the same questions. Where was I born? When did I start singing? Who have I worked with? I don't understand why they can't just talk to me without all that question bit.”

Sarah Vaughan (1924–1990) American jazz singer

Interview, The Montreal Mirror, 1976

Understanding , Question

“I want to keep working 24*7. When I am not singing, I go into deep introspection mode and start asking myself, why I am not getting much songs. I feel even working 24*7 every day is less for me.”

Shreya Ghoshal (1984) Indian playback singer

Talked about changes in career after marriage http://www.hindustantimes.com/bollywood/i-feel-restless-when-i-m-not-singing-want-to-work-24-7-shreya-ghoshal/story-hAKs3O9xVa8bQXvZvKpXIP.html

Feeling

“Interview to the newspaper "Week" [Russian: "Неделя"/Nedelya], 1978:
-They say you started singing from the cradle?
-Couldn't do it in the cradle: the dummy was in the way.”

Sofia Rotaru (1947) Ukrainain soviet and Ukrainian musician, singer, songwriter, actress, author of Moldavian origin

Way

“Now the nature of man being ever prone to idolatry from the beginning of the world, and the Papists being ready by all means and policy to defend and extol the mass, for their estimation and profit; and the people being superstitiously enamored and doted upon the mass (because they take it for a present remedy against all manners of evils); and part of the princes being blinded by papistical doctrine part loving quietness, and loth to offend their clergy and subjects, and all being captives and subjects to the antichrist of Rome; the state of the world remaining in this case, it is no wonder that abuses grew and increased in the church, that superstition with idolatry were taken for godliness and true religion, and that many things were brought in without the authority of Christ as purgatory, the oblation and sacrificing of Christ by the priest alone; the application and appointing of the same to such persons as the priests would sing or say mass for, and to such abuses, as they could devise; to deliver some from purgatory, and some from hell (if they were not there finally by God determined to abide, as they termed the matter); to hallow and preserve them that went to Jerusalem, to Rome, to St. James in Compostella, and to other places in pilgrimage; for a preservative against tempest and thunder, against perils and dangers of the sea, fora remedy against murrain of cattle, against pensiveness of the heart, and against all manner of affliction and tribulation”

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury

Ibid, pp. 517-518, (1809)

Love , God , People , World

“A nightingale dies for shame if another bird sings better.”

Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy

Section 2, member 3, subsection 6.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part I

Bird

“The fish in the water is silent, the animal on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing, But Man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

43
Stray Birds (1916)

Music , Bird , Fish , Silence

“When you are very old, at evening, by candelight,
Sitting near the fire, spooling and spinning the wool,
You will say, in wonder, as you sing my verses,
"Ronsard praised me in the days when I was beautiful."”

Pierre de Ronsard book Sonnets pour Hélène

Quand vous serez bien vieille, au soir, à la chandelle,
Assise auprès du feu, dévidant et filant,
Direz, chantant mes vers, en vous émerveillant:
"Ronsard me célébrait du temps que j'étais belle."
vous serez bien vieille, au soir, à la chandelle" http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Quand_vous_serez_bien_vieille%2C_au_soir%2C_%C3%A0_la_chandelle"Quand, Sonnets pour Hélène (1578), ll. 1-4.

Beauty

“That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

"Home-Thoughts, from Abroad", line 14.
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)

Thinking

“If a robin can sing like that for a worm surely I can work like a father for my good wife and my four fine children!”

Smith Wigglesworth (1859–1947) British evangelist

Page 8
The Complete Story: A New Biography on the Apostle of Faith By Julian Wilson http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=e2RWZpOHfmoC|Wigglesworth:

Children

“Then I would sing a little in the synagogue. See, if you're a singer, you love to turn your own ears on. You look for those rooms where the reverb is great. I remember the synagogue had a lot of wood and it was a great room. And it was a captive audience and you could sing these minor key songs and make them cry, and that was a thrill.”

Art Garfunkel (1941) American singer, poet, and actor

http://www.artgarfunkel.info/more.html

Love , Cry

“Maybe I should try singing like a man.”

James Blunt (1974) English singer-songwriter

Speaking at the 2006 BRIT Awards. http://news.superiorpics.com/print/2006/02/16/blunt_and_martin_attack_critics_0211_6.html

“A tree ascended there. Oh pure transendence!
Oh Orpheus sings! Oh tall tree in the ear!
And all things hushed. Yet even in that silence
a new beginning, beckoning, change appeared.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Sonnets to Orpheus

Translated by Stephen Mitchell
Sonnets to Orpheus (1922)

Tree , Silence , Appearance , Change

“Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.”

Edgar Allan Poe Eldorado

"Eldorado", st. 1 (1849).

Search

“The air is bright with hues of light
And rich with laughter and with singing:
Young hearts beat high in ecstasy,
And banners wave, and bells are ringing:
But silence falls with fading day,
And there's an end to mirth and play.
Ah, well-a-day!”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Four Riddles, no. III
Rhyme? and Reason? (1883)

Laughter , Light , Silence , Heart

“That was the burden,' she mused, 'laid on me in the cradle; murmured by waves; breathed by restless elm trees; crooned by singing women; what we must rememeber; what we would forget.”

Virginia Woolf book Between the Acts

Between the Acts (1941)

Women , Tree , Forgetting

“I will probably die singing.”

Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) South African singer and civil rights activist

As quoted in

“O Brother! Not every sea hath pearls; not every branch will flower, nor will the nightingale sing thereon. Then, ere the nightingale of the mystic paradise repair to the garden of God, and the rays of the heavenly morning return to the Sun of Truth—make thou an effort, that haply in this dustheap of the mortal world thou mayest catch a fragrance from the everlasting garden, and live forever in the shadow of the peoples of this city. And when thou hast attained this highest station and come to this mightiest plane, then shalt thou gaze on the Beloved, and forget all else.”

Bahá'u'lláh (1817–1892) founder of the Bahá'í Faith

The Seven Valleys Of Bahá’u’lláh

God , People , Truth , World

“I feel how inside of me word follows word and thought follows thought, growing to the last act of creation. Holy hour of bringing forth, you are pain and pleasure, and a longing for form, image and essence. I am only the instrument that God uses to sing his song. I am only the vessel that nature smilingly fills with new wine.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Ich fühle, wie in mir sich wachsend Wort an Wort, Gedanke an Gedanke reiht zum letzten Akt der Schöpfung. Heilige Stunde des Gebärens, Schmerz bist du und Lust und eine Sehnsucht nach Form, Gestalt und Wesen. Ich bin nur Instrument, darauf der alte Gott sein Lied singt. Ich bin nur harrendes Gefäß, in das Natur den neuen Wein mit Lächeln füllt.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

God , Pain , Pleasure , Feeling

“For ourselves, who are ordinary men and women, let us return thanks to Nature for her bounty by using every one of the senses she has given us; vary our state as much as possible; turn now this side, now that, to the warmth, and relish to the full before the sun goes down the kisses of youth and the echoes of a beautiful voice singing Catullus. Every season is likeable, and wet days and fine, red wine and white, company and solitude. Even sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life, can be full of dreams; and the most common actions—a walk, a talk, solitude in one’s own orchard—can be enhanced and lit up by the association of the mind. Beauty is everywhere, and beauty is only two finger’s-breadth from goodness.”

Virginia Woolf The Common Reader

"Montaigne" http://teaching.quotidiana.org/essays/Woolf_Montaigne.html
The Common Reader (1925)

Life , Women , Men , Youth

“Our fathers’ God, to thee,
Author of liberty,
To thee I sing;
Long may our land be bright
With freedom’s holy light;
Protect us by thy might,
Great God, our King!”

Samuel Francis Smith (1808–1895) Protestant Christian Minister Patriotic hymn writer

America, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

God , Freedom , Light

“In India, the measure of a singer's freedom is in his own creative personality. He can sing the composer's song as his own, if he has the power creatively to assert himself in his interpretation of the general law of the melody which he is given to interpret.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Interview with Einstein (1930)

Law , Freedom , Personality

“It is a little dark still, but there are warnings of the day and somewhere out of the darkness a bird is singing to the Dawn.”

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906) American author

Representative American Negroes, an essay from The Negro Problem, a collection of essays written in 1903 by leading African Americans.

Bird

“If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

"Israfel", st. 8 (1831).

“Michael Jackson, who can sing, and is a good lookin' guy - but ain't the most masculine fellow in the world.”

Eddie Murphy (1961) American stand-up comedian, actor, and singer

Eddie Murphy Delirious (1983)

World , Guy

“I miss the lack of melody [in current music] as well. I mean, a lot of people think I'm crazy for liking Creed and I like them purely because they sing! I mean, the singer of Creed sings like the guy from Pearl Jam, very close kind of voice. But I like the fact that Creed sing. I don't care if they're a Bible band, Satan band…”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

MTV.com, 2002

People , Music , Guy , Thinking

“Last night we owned, with looks forlorn,
"Too well the scholar knows
There is no rose without a thorn" —
But peace is made! We sing, this morn,
"No thorn without a rose!"
Our Latin lesson is complete:
We've learned that Love is Bitter-Sweet!”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

A Lesson in Latin (1888), st. 3
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Love , Peace , Learning , Night

“The celebrated Mr. K.
Performs his feat on Saturday at Bishops Gate
The Hendersons will dance and sing
As Mr. Kite flies through the ring don't be late
Messrs. K and H. assure the public
Their production will be second to none
And of course Henry the Horse dances the waltz!”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

"Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" (1967)
Lyrics

Horse , Dance

“You can knock me down, but you better have a big rock to put me there… It's been tough, but that's alright. I am the oldest of ten kids and I am a survivor. I love this business so much, that there's no way I could think of retiring. When I'm 87, I'll still be walking on the Grand Ole Opry and singing "Here comes more tears to cry…". I still don't feel that I have the biggest record yet, or sang it the best. I think the best is yet to come, and that's the truth!”

Dottie West (1932–1991) American country music singer

From an interview with "The Nashville Network" in 1991, putting rumors aside that she might be retiring.

Love , Truth , Way , Feeling

“Voices were blended and intermingled in a tumultuous swirl around which eddied laughter, shouts, the squeaking of doors and windows, piano and accordion music, rollicking handclaps, a policeman's bark, braying, grunts, coughs of hashish addicts and screams of drunkards, anonymous calls for help, raps of a stick, and singing by individuals and groups.”

Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) Egyptian writer

Mahfouz (1957) Palace of Desire Part II; Cited in Matt Schudel " Leading Arab Novelist Gave Streets a Voice http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083000475.html" in: Washington Post, August 31, 2006

Music , Laughter , Help

“Valmiki went alone to the clear Ganga waterside and bathed. He washed away the anthill dust and peeled grey bark from a tree and made new fresh clothes. Then he sat back resting against a stone. He watched two small water birds in a tree nearby. The male bird was singing to his mate when before Valmiki’s eyes an arrow hit him, and the little bird fell from the limb. He thrashed on the ground an instant and then lay dead and blood drops strained his feathers.”

Vālmīki Ramayana

Source: Ramayana, p. 7.

Bird , Tree , Water , Clothes

“No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"Notes on Music and Opera", p. 472
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

People , Feeling

“The traveller with empty pockets will sing in the thief's face.”
Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator.

Juvenal book Satires

X, line 22.
Satires, Satire X

Travel

“I don't want to start singing about things like sex, drugs and swearing. I'm into love, and maybe I'll get more into making love when I'm older. But I want to be someone who is respected by everybody.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Source: Interview with V Magazine, as quoted in UsMagazine: Justin Bieber Talks Sex, Drugs and Turning 18 http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/justin-bieber-talks-sex-drugs-and-turning-18-2012101, January 2012

Love , Making love , Sex

“In those years, when I came to the States, people were always asking me why I didn’t sing anymore. I’d tell them, ‘I sing all around the world—Asia, Africa, Europe—but if you don’t sing in the US, then you haven’t really made it.’ That’s why I’ll always be grateful to Paul Simon. He allowed me to bring my music back to my friends in this country.”

Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) South African singer and civil rights activist

As quoted in Poet, J. (11 February 2009)

People , World , Music , Country

“For what would I be otherwise but sport,
In love with one who does not care for me?
I will hide pain in smiles, sooner than be
The common talk. It is a bitter art
To sing a happy song with a sad heart.”

Christine de Pizan De triste cuer chanter joyeusement

Car en mon cuer porte couvertement
Le dueil qui soit qui plus me puet desplaire,
Et si me fault, pour les gens faire taire,
Rire en plorant et très amerement
De triste cuer chanter joyeusement.
Rondeau "De triste cuer chanter joyeusement", line 8; Maurice Roy (ed.) Œuvres Poétiques de Christine de Pisan (1886) vol. 1, p. 154, as translated by http://www.brindin.com/pfpistri.htm by Sheenagh Pugh.

Love , Pain , Sadness , Smile

“A kind of music far superior, in my opinion, to that of operas, and which in all Italy has not its equal, nor perhaps in the whole world, is that of the 'scuole'. The 'scuole' are houses of charity, established for the education of young girls without fortune, to whom the republic afterwards gives a portion either in marriage or for the cloister. Amongst talents cultivated in these young girls, music is in the first rank. Every Sunday at the church of each of the four 'scuole', during vespers, motettos or anthems with full choruses, accompanied by a great orchestra, and composed and directed by the best masters in Italy, are sung in the galleries by girls only; not one of whom is more than twenty years of age. I have not an idea of anything so voluptuous and affecting as this music; the richness of the art, the exquisite taste of the vocal part, the excellence of the voices, the justness of the execution, everything in these delightful concerts concurs to produce an impression which certainly is not the mode, but from which I am of opinion no heart is secure. Carrio and I never failed being present at these vespers of the 'Mendicanti', and we were not alone. The church was always full of the lovers of the art, and even the actors of the opera came there to form their tastes after these excellent models. What vexed me was the iron grate, which suffered nothing to escape but sounds, and concealed from me the angels of which they were worthy. I talked of nothing else. One day I spoke of it at Le Blond's; "If you are so desirous," said he, "to see those little girls, it will be an easy matter to satisfy your wishes. I am one of the administrators of the house, I will give you a collation [light meal] with them." I did not let him rest until he had fulfilled his promise. In entering the saloon, which contained these beauties I so much sighed to see, I felt a trembling of love which I had never before experienced. M. le Blond presented to me one after the other, these celebrated female singers, of whom the names and voices were all with which I was acquainted. Come, Sophia, — she was horrid. Come, Cattina, — she had but one eye. Come, Bettina, — the small-pox had entirely disfigured her. Scarcely one of them was without some striking defect.
Le Blond laughed at my surprise; however, two or three of them appeared tolerable; these never sung but in the choruses; I was almost in despair. During the collation we endeavored to excite them, and they soon became enlivened; ugliness does not exclude the graces, and I found they possessed them. I said to myself, they cannot sing in this manner without intelligence and sensibility, they must have both; in fine, my manner of seeing them changed to such a degree that I left the house almost in love with each of these ugly faces. I had scarcely courage enough to return to vespers. But after having seen the girls, the danger was lessened. I still found their singing delightful; and their voices so much embellished their persons that, in spite of my eyes, I obstinately continued to think them beautiful.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), On the musicians of the Ospedale della Pieta (book VII)

Love , Marriage , Age , World

“It is quiet and peaceful here, the air is good, there are numerous gardens, and in them nightingales sing and spies lurk under the bushes.”

Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian and Soviet writer

Letter to Anton Chekhov http://books.google.com/books?id=rXsdAAAAMAAJ&q="It+is+quiet+and+peaceful+here+the+air+is+good+there+are+numerous+gardens+and+in++them+nightingales+sing+and+spies+lurk+under+the+bushes"&pg=PA28#v=onepage

Peace

“The murderer smiles palely in wine,
Death's horror grips the sick.
Excoriated and naked, the nun prays
Before the Savior's agony on the cross.

The mother sings quietly in sleep.
Peacefully the child looks into the night
With eyes that are completely truthful.
In the whorehouse laughter rings.

By candlelight down in the cellar hole
The dead one paints with white hand
A grinning silence on the wall.
The sleeper whispers still.”

Georg Trakl (1887–1914) austrian poet

"Romance in the Night"

Death , Truth , Smile , Laughter

“O sons of Peace, sons of the One Catholic [Church], walk in your way, and sing as you walk. Travelers do this in order to keep up their spirits.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.427

Peace , Way , Travel

“While some mothers sing lullabies to their children, my mother read me poetry. And to this day, I associate my strongest and most insistent feelings with words lyrically organized on a page.”

Masiela Lusha (1985) Albanian actress, writer, author

On her creative inspiration http://tolucantimes.info/section/inside-this-issue/young-author-makes-her-mark-in-the-world-of-children’s-literature/

Children , Feeling , Reading

“That means a lot, it goes from generation to generation, and you can't wonder why, and I think it's because it's such a good energy in it, and I think the girls and boys, they want to dress like us, and they want to sing along.”

Agnetha Fältskog (1950) Swedish recording artist and entertainer

On other musicians who has 'grown up' listening to ABBA, who wants to work with Agnetha; Interview on 'Loose Women', Interviewer: Carol Vorderman, ITV 16 May 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7USzqiSflss

Girl , Boy , Thinking

“That's you now, hello, ciao.
Seems that life is great now.
See me lose focus, as I sing to you loud.
I can't, no, I won't hush.
I'll say the words that make you blush.
I'm gonna sing this now.
See, I'm true, my songs are where my heart is.”

Ed Sheeran (1991) English singer-songwriter and producer

You Need Me, I Don't Need You.
Song lyrics, + (2011)

Life , Heart

“All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair —
The bees are stirring — birds are on the wing —
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Source: Work Without Hope (1825), l. 1

Smile , Dreams , Spring , Nature

“Sing away sorrow, cast away care.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 8.

“Irish poets, earn your trade,
Sing whatever is well made,
Scorn the sort now growing up
All out of shape from toe to top,
Their unremembering hearts and heads
Base-born products of base beds.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Under Ben Bulben http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1745/, V
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Heart

“At midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

Byzantium, st. 4
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

Dance

“Will you not allow that I have as much of the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans? For they, when they perceive that they must die, having sung all their life long, do then sing more than ever, rejoicing in the thought that they are about to go away to the god whose ministers they are.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Life , God

“She’s a nice girl – I just feel very honoured that she wanted to sing my song. I used to scream for her in Times Square and now I work for her. When I was 13 she was the most provocative performer of my time. I love her so much! Britney certainly doesn’t need any freakin’ tips from me! Britney Spears is the queen of pop. I was learning from her.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Lady Gaga on Britney Spears http://www.nowmagazine.co.uk/celebrity-news/300123/lady-gaga-i-don-t-have-time-for-dating/1

Love , Feeling , Girl , Learning

“Her mouth is a honey-blossom,
No doubt, as the poet sings;
But within her lips, the petals,
Lurks a cruel bee that stings.”

William Dean Howells (1837–1920) author, critic and playwright from the United States

The Sarcastic Fair

Bee

“We'd be making sail in the dawn, with a fair breeze, singing a chanty song wid no care to it. And astern the land would be sinking low and dying out, but we'd give it no heed but a laugh, and never look behind. For the day that was, was enough, for we was free men — and I'm thinking 'tis only slaves do be giving heed to the day that's gone or the day to come — until they're old like me.”

Eugene O'Neill The Hairy Ape

Paddy: Scene 1
The Hairy Ape (1922)

Men , Thinking

“The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: "For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages," what just reason could he give for refusing? But nobody says this. The self-appointed unqualified nurse says: "You are to sing the patient a song which will make him believe that I, and I alone, can cure him. If you can't or won't, I shall confiscate your passport and send you to the mines." And the poor patient in his delirium cries: "Please sing me a song which will give me sweet dreams instead of nightmares. If you succeed, I will give you a penthouse in New York or a ranch in Arizona."”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"Writing", p. 27
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

God , Dreams

“In many a situation, the images that words hide while walking forth are the desired meaning of particular words rather than the word itself. Those words sing and dance by coming out of the paper.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

<span class="plainlinks"> Foreword, 'Tales of Transformation: English Translation of Tagore's Chitrangada and Chandalika', Lopamudra Banerjee, (2018). https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DQPD8F4/</span>
From Prose

Dance

“We came to a tree which was still bare, and on which the birds were singing out gaily in the morning, without any fear of us. Then stooping over like an Indian on the hunt, my companion placed a pebble in the leather of his sling and stretched it. Obeying his peremptory glance I did the same, with frightful twinges of conscience, vowing firmly that I would shoot when he did. At that very moment the church bells began to sound, mingling with the song of the birds in the sunshine. It was the warning bell that came a half-hour before the main bell. For me it was a voice from heaven. I threw the sling down, scaring the birds away, so that they were safe from my companion's sling, and fled home. And ever afterwards when the bells of Holy Week ring out amidst the leafless trees in the sunshine I remember with moving gratitude how they rang into my heart at that time the commandment: Thou shalt not kill.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Memoirs of Childhood and Youth (1924)

Fear , Home , Bird , Tree

“I never really learned how to sing. I mean, I think I get most of my experience from just the shower, just annoying my parents to no end, singing loud, having grand encore concerts in the shower. But I’ve kind of been stuck with this high-pitched voice since forever, so I kind of learned how to use it to my advantage. And I can go very low, too. Not many people know that. I went low once on the show and no one believed it was me.”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

Interview Quotes, Random Quotes

People , Thinking , Parent , Learning

“Chuang Tzu's wife died and Hui Tzu came to console him, but Chuang Tzu was sitting, legs akimbo, bashing a battered tub and singing. Hui Tzu said, 'You lived as man and wife, she reared your children. At her death surely the least you should be doing is to be on the verge of weeping, rather than banging the tub and singing: this is not right!' Chuang Tzu said, 'Certainly not. When she first died, I certainly mourned just like everyone else! However, I then thought back to her birth and to the very roots of her being, before she was born. Indeed, not just before she was born but before the time when her body was created. Not just before her body was created but before the origin of life's breath. Her life's breath wrought a transformation and she had a body. Her body wrought a transformation and she was born. Now there is yet another transformation and she is dead. She is like the four seasons in the way that spring, summer, autumn and winter follow each other. She is now at peace, lying in her chamber, but if I were to sob and cry it would certainly appear that I could not comprehend the ways of destiny. This is why I stopped.<nowiki/”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

Ch. 18 (Martin Palmer/Elizabeth Breuily, Penguin Publishing 1996)

Life , Death , Children , Peace

“Our modern worship of empty ideals is ludicrous. What does the condition of the rabble matter? All we need do is to keep it as quiet as we can. What is more important, is to perpetuate those things of beauty which are of real value because involving actual sense-impressions rather than vapid theories. "Equality" is a joke — but a great abbey or cathedral, covered with moss, is a poignant reality. If it is for us to safeguard and preserve the conditions which produce great abbeys, and palaces, and picturesque walled town, and vivid sky-lines of steeples and domes, and luxurious tapestries, and fascinating books, paintings and statuary, and colossal organs and noble music, and dramatic deeds on embattled fields — these are all there is of life: take them away and we have nothing which a man of taste or spirit would care to live for. Take them away and our poets have nothing to sing — our dreamers have nothing to dream about. The blood of a million men is well shed in producing one glorious legend which thrills posterity and it is not at all important why it was shed.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to James F. Morton (10 February 1923), published in Selected Letters Vol. I (1965), p. 208
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.

Life , Men , Books , Beauty

“Getting crazy on the Waltzers, but it's the life that I choose.
Sing about the sixblade, sing about the switchback and a torture tattoo.
And I been riding on a ghost train where the cars they scream and slam,
And I don't know where I'll be tonight but I'd always tell you where I am.”

Mark Knopfler (1949) English guitarist

Tunnel of Love, written with Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
Song lyrics, Making Movies (1980)

Life , Cars , Tattoo , Training

“The visas came through in 1955, when I was 15. That June, we sailed for New York aboard the Conte Biancamano. When we passed the Statue of Liberty, Anna Maria [my sister] tried to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner".”

Mario Andretti (1940) Italian-American racing driver

"Coming to America -- In the Fast Lane," "House Call," "Mansion," The Wall Street Journal (3 August 2018), M1
2010s

Star , Sister

“Bel canto does not mean beautiful singing alone. It is, rather, the technique demanded by the composers of this style — Donizetti, Rossini, and Bellini. It is the same attitudes and demands of Mozart and Beethoven, for example, the same approach and the same technical difficulties faced by instrumentalists. You see, a musician is a musician. A singer is no different from an instrumentalist except that we have words. You don't excuse things in a singer you would not dream of excusing in a violinist or pianist. There is no excuse for not having a trill, for not doing the acciaccatura, for not having good scales. Look at your scores! There are technical things written there to be performed, and they must be performed whether you like it or not. How will you get out of a trill? How will you get out of scales when they are written there, staring you in the face? It is not enough to have a beautiful voice. What does that mean? When you interpret a role, you have to have a thousand colors to portray happiness, joy, sorrow, fear. How can you do this with only a beautiful voice? Even if you sing harshly sometimes, as I have frequently done, it is a necessity of expression. You have to do it, even if people will not understand. But in the long run they will, because you must persuade them of what you're doing.”

Maria Callas (1923–1977) American-born Greek operatic soprano

Callas : The Art and the Life (1974)

People , Fear , Beauty , Dreams

“We "conserve" nothing; neither do we want to return to any past periods; we are not by any means "liberal"; we do not work for "progress"; we do not need to plug up our ears against the sirens who in the market place sing of the future: their song about "equal rights," "a free society," "no more masters and no servants" has no allure for us.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

The Gay Science (1882)

Past , Future

“I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

II, st. 4
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), A Dialogue of Self and Soul http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1397/

Forgiveness

“Now when God sends forth his holy Gospel, He deals with us in a twofold manner, the first outwardly, then inwardly. Outwardly he deals with us through the oral word of the Gospel and through material sings, that is, baptism adndthe sacrament of the altar. Inwardly He deals with us through the Holy spirit, faith, and other gifts. But whatever their measure of order the outward factors should and must procede. The inward experience follows and is effected by the outward. God has determined to give the inward to no one except through the outward.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Luthers Works, 40 p. 146 as quoted in Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin https://books.google.com/books?id=95sDFZbl4S4C&pg=PA55&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q=Calvin&f=falseby Carlos M. N. Eire, p. 72

God , Faith

“On voice and music: "The voice, for me, is probably the best instrument, but, on the other hand, when a person sings words they immediately limit themselves to a certain category of people, to a particular dialect.”

Vangelis (1943) Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock, and orchestral music

Music without lyrics travels more easily and may be biologically conceived and received".
1979

People , Personality

“He who sings prays twice.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Misattributed

“Singing is of a lover.”
Cantare amantis est.

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Variant translation: To sing is characteristic of the lover.
336
Sermons

Lovers

“Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1736/
The Rose (1893)
Context: Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,
Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;

Sadness , Way

“You sing them better than anybody. I don't want to be a second-rate example of you. I want to be a first-rate example of myself.”

Liza Minnelli (1946) American actress and singer

Liza Minelli, as quoted in "Liza Minelli 'Never Felt Better' Despite Tabloids' Whispers" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rmRGAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6ugMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3577%2C2269544 by Douglas J. Rowe, in TV Plus: The Schenectady Sunday Gazette Supplement (June 9, 1996), p. 4
Context: It really scared me to do what Mom did because I never did anything that she did. I promised her that I would never sing her songs, and I kept my promise. "You sing them better than anybody. I don't want to be a second-rate example of you. I want to be a first-rate example of myself."

“Awake, Ausonian Muse, and sing the vineyard song!”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

Heroic Poem in Praise of Wine (1932)
Context: To exalt, enthrone, establish and defend,
To welcome home mankind's mysterious friend
Wine, true begetter of all arts that be;
Wine, privilege of the completely free;
Wine the recorder; wine the sagely strong;
Wine, bright avenger of sly-dealing wrong,
Awake, Ausonian Muse, and sing the vineyard song!

“Yet she, singing upon her road,
Half lion, half child, is at peace.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Against Unworthy Praise http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1433/
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
Context: p>O heart, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What's not for their applause
Being for a woman's sake.
Enough if the work has seemed,
So did she your strength renew,
A dream that a lion had dreamed
Till the wilderness cried aloud,
A secret between you two,
Between the proud and the proud.What, still you would have their praise!
But here's a haughtier text,
The labyrinth of her days
That her own strangeness perplexed;
And how what her dreaming gave
Earned slander, ingratitude,
From self-same dolt and knave;
Aye, and worse wrong than these.
Yet she, singing upon her road,
Half lion, half child, is at peace.</p

Peace

“There is a legend about a bird that sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth.”

Colleen McCullough book The Thorn Birds

Epigraph, The Thorn Birds (1977)
Context: There is a legend about a bird that sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. Dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of the great pain. … Or so says the legend.

Life , Bird

“Today it’s time to stop singing and start swinging. You can’t sing up on freedom, but you can swing up on some freedom.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)
Context: The government has failed us; you can’t deny that. Anytime you live in the twentieth century, 1964, and you’re walking around here singing “We Shall Overcome,” the government has failed us. This is part of what’s wrong with you -- you do too much singing. Today it’s time to stop singing and start swinging. You can’t sing up on freedom, but you can swing up on some freedom. Cassius Clay can sing, but singing didn’t help him to become the heavyweight champion of the world; swinging helped him become the heavyweight champion.

Freedom , Time

“I would like to say to you, to the leaders of the left, and the leaders of the right, I sing… I sing for everyone. My song has no flag, my song has no party.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Introducing "Who by Fire"
Warsaw concert (1985)
Context: I come from a country where we do not have the same struggles as you have. I respect your struggles. And it may surprise you, but I respect both sides of this struggle. It seems to be that in Europe there needs to be a left foot and a right foot to move forward. I wish that both feet move forward and the body moves towards its proper destiny. This is an intense country; the people are heroic, the spirit is independent. It is a difficult country to govern, it needs a strong government and a strong union. … I would like to say to you, to the leaders of the left, and the leaders of the right, I sing... I sing for everyone. My song has no flag, my song has no party. And I say the prayer, that we said in our synagogue, I say it for the leader of your union and the leader of your party. May the Lord put a spirit, a wisdom and understanding into the hearts of your leaders and into the hearts of all their counsellors.

“Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,—
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.”

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery

My Triumph, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Context: Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue;
Nobler than any fact
My wish that failed of act.

Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,—
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.

“Again, and maybe the last time on this earth, I recall the great vision you sent me. It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. Hear me, not for myself, but for my people; I am old. Hear me that they may once more go back into the sacred hoop and find the good red road, the shielding tree!”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)
Context: To the center of the world you have taken me and showed the goodness and the beauty and the strangeness of the greening earth, the only mother — and there the spirit shapes of things, as they should be, you have shown to me and I have seen. At the center of this sacred hoop, you have said that I should make the tree to bloom.
With tears running, O Great Spirit, Great Spirit, my Grandfather — with running tears I must say now that the tree has never bloomed. A pitiful old man, you see me here, and I have fallen away and have done nothing. Here at the center of the world, where you took me when I was young and taught me; here, old, I stand, and the tree is withered, Grandfather, my Grandfather!
Again, and maybe the last time on this earth, I recall the great vision you sent me. It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. Hear me, not for myself, but for my people; I am old. Hear me that they may once more go back into the sacred hoop and find the good red road, the shielding tree!

People , Bird , Tree , Time

“Listen intently to a voice singing without words. It may charm you into crying, force you to dance, fill you with rage, or make you jump for joy. You can't tell where the music ends and the emotions begin, for the whole thing is a kind of music—the voice playing on your nerves as the breath plays on a flute. All experience is just that, except that its music has many more dimensions than sound. It vibrates in the dimensions of sight, touch, taste, and smell, and in the intellectual dimension of symbols and words—all evoking and playing upon each other.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 95

Music , Rage , Joy , Dance

“And singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley To a Skylark

St. 2
To a Skylark (1821)
Context: Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest.

“Come near; I would, before my time to go,
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time
The Rose (1893)
Context: Come near, come near, come near — Ah, leave me still
A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
Lest I no more hear common things that crave;
The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,
The field-mouse running by me in the grass,
And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;
But seek alone to hear the strange things said
By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,
And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.
Come near; I would, before my time to go,
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.

Sadness , Way , Time

“Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.”

Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921) British poet

"The Chantry Of The Cherubim" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson.
Context: p>I buoyed me on the wings of dream,
Above the world of sense;
I set my thought to sound the scheme,
And fathom the Immense;
I tuned my spirit as a lute
To catch wind-music wandering mute.Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.Nor I am more, nor less, than these;
All are one brotherhood;
I and all creatures, plants, and trees,
The living limbs of God;
And in an hour, as this, divine,
I feel the vast pulse throb in mine.</p

Soul , Star , Flowers , Knowledge

“He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

A Prayer For Old Age http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1423/, st. 1.
A Full Moon in March (1935)
Context: God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone.

Thinking

“Of course I am downcast and tremble
with pity for my state
when old age and wrinkles cover me,

when Eros flies about
and I pursue the glorious young.
Pick up your lyre

and sing to us of her who wears
violets on her breasts. Sing especially
of her who is wandering.”

Sappho (-630–-570 BC) ancient Greek lyric poet

Fragment 58 Voigt
The Willis Barnstone translations, Old Age

Age

“I want no purely musical developments which are not called for inevitably by the text. In opera there is always too much singing. Music should be as swift and mobile as the words themselves.”

Claude Debussy (1862–1918) French composer

As quoted in Debussy (1989) by Paul Holmes, p. 36
Context: Music would take over at the point at which words become powerless, with the one and only object of expressing that which nothing but music could express. For this, I need a text by a poet who, resorting to discreet suggestion rather than full statement, will enable me to graft my dream upon his dream — who will give me plain human beings in a setting belonging to no particular period or country. … Then I do not wish my music to drown the words, nor to delay the course of the action. I want no purely musical developments which are not called for inevitably by the text. In opera there is always too much singing. Music should be as swift and mobile as the words themselves.

Music