“When we rejoice in beautiful scenery, great art, and great music, it is but the flexing of instincts acquired in another place and another time.”

“I think classical music is a great, beautiful art as long as people recognize it. But first we need to calm down and listen to it with heart. In this technologically advanced time, too many things are drawing peoples' attention. Sometimes we need to slow down, look back and feel the beauty of art and life.”

Lang Lang (1982) Chinese pianist

“A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.”

Robert McKee (1941) American academic specialised in seminars for screenwriters

“Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness.”

George Jean Nathan (1882–1958) American drama critic and magazine editor

“Even a large majority of beautiful music, great literature, and wonderful work of arts depicts human suffering, injustice, fears, and unfulfilled desires.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

“Hearing music is like viewing scenery and… when we hear good music our minds react in very much the same way they do when we see things.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.”

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

“A man that has a taste of music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relish of those arts.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

“Music moves us, and we know not why;
We feel the tears, but cannot trace their source.
Is it the language of some other state,
Born of its memory? For what can wake
The soul's strong instinct of another world,
Like music?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

“At night the sea is very loud,
And voices ride the tide.
At another time, in another place,
Beneath the silent moon,
We laughed together.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer