“Nothing is more difficult than talking about music: if it is a prickly business for musicians, it is almost impossible for anyone else—the strongest, subtlest minds go astray.”
Source: “L’illusion wagnérienne”, Portraits et souvenirs, Société d’édition artistique, 1899, 206‒220
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Camille Saint-Saëns 1
French composer, organist, conductor, and pianist of the Ro… 1835–1921Related quotes
Life in the Industry: A Musician's Diary
1920s, The Doctrine Of The Sword (1920)
Context: In this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost impossible for anyone to believe that anyone else could possibly reject the law of final supremacy of brute force. And so I receive anonymous letters advising me that I must not interfere with the progress of non-co-operation even though popular violence may break out. Others come to me and assuming that secretly I must be plotting violence, inquire when the happy moment for declaring open violence to arrive. They assure me that English never yield to anything but violence secret or open. Yet others I am informed, believe that I am the most rascally person living in India because I never give out my real intention and that they have not a shadow of a doubt that I believe in violence just as much as most people do.
Such being the hold that the doctrine of the sword has on the majority of mankind, and as success of non-co-operation depends principally on absence of violence during its pendency and as my views in this matter affect the conduct of large number of people. I am anxious to state them as clearly as possible.
I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence.
Holly Kruse (1999). Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture, pg. 94. Malden, Massachusetts. ISBN 0631212639.
Brown, J. & Eliot, M. (2005). I Feel Good: A Memoir of a Life of Soul , pp. 247-248. New American Library: New York. ISBN 0-45121-393-9
As quoted by Sidney A. Pearson, Jr. in the 2004 introduction to Party Government: American Government in Action
“The person who wrote the poem can tell you more about the poem than anyone else.”
Interview with Ernest Hibert (2006)
“I have learned more from Ezra Pound about writing than from anyone else.”
Review of Letters of Ezra Pound 1950
Prose
“It is almost impossible to think without talking.”
"As I Please," Tribune (28 April 1944) https://books.google.com/books?id=fCRLPIbLP8IC&pg=PA133&dq=%22it+is+almost+impossible+to+think+without+talking%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZi9qjndzZAhURrVkKHbDDCxkQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=%22it%20is%20almost%20impossible%20to%20think%20without%20talking%22&f=false
"As I Please" (1943–1947)
Context: The greatest mistake is to imagine that the human being is an autonomous individual. The secret freedom which you can supposedly enjoy under a despotic government is nonsense, because your thoughts are never entirely your own. Philosophers, writers, artists, even scientists, not only need encouragement and an audience, they need constant stimulation from other people. It is almost impossible to think without talking.... Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up.