Quotes about harp (81 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Soul

“If melodiously piping flutes sprang from the olive, would you doubt that a knowledge of flute-playing resided in the olive? And what if plane trees bore harps which gave forth rhythmical sounds? Clearly you would think in the same way that the art of music was possessed by plane trees. Why, then, seeing that the universe gives birth to beings that are animate and wise, should it not be considered animate and wise itself?”

Zeno of Citium (-334–-263 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, ii. 8.

Art , Music , Way , Birth

“What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened…. Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his REAL self that can dare and do and win out!… The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town…. People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds and scowls and criticizes — his neighbors will return scowl for scowl, and add interest!… When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good — you will get that…. Tell your son Tom you KNOW he'll be glad to fill that woodbox — then watch him start, alert and interested!”

Eleanor H. Porter (1868–1920) American novelist

Works, Pollyanna (1913)

Women , Men , People , Beauty

“I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

Amos (prophet) Hebrew prophet

5:21-24 NIV
Book of Amos

Justice , Music

“What are they tuning, a harp? I thought we were a big rich rock band. We should have a whole bunch of extra guitars.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

1993-11-18 at Sony Music Studios, New York City, New York (MTV Unplugged).
Stage banter

“In winter, when the dismal rain
Comes down in slanting lines,
And Wind, that grand old harper, smote
His thunder-harp of pines.”

Alexander Smith (1829–1867) Scottish poet and essayist

Scene 2.
A Life Drama and other Poems (1853)

Winter

“Nature is an Æolian Harp, a musical instrument; whose tones again are keys to higher strings in us.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Novalis (1829)

Music , Nature

“Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Source: The Wilderness World of John Muir

Life , Music

“I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

Source: Dubliners

“I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Dust Tracks on a Road

Source: Dust Tracks on a Road

Mountain

“They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Problem

“Oh God, the terrible tyranny of the majority. We all have our harps to play. And it's up to you to know with which ear you'll listen.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

God

“But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

"Araby"
Dubliners (1914)

“A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, pages 243-244
Source: 1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

Life , God , Music , Tree

“But the Harp called out quite loud: Master! Master!”

Joseph Jacobs book English Fairy Tales

English Fairy Tales (1890), Preface to English Fairy Tales, Jack and the Beanstalk

“I shall detain you no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct ye to a hillside, where I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Tractate of Education (1644)

Education

“Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

The Golden Legend http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10490/10490-h/10490-h.htm, Pt. IV, The Cloisters (1872).

Time , Heart

“A really critical mind will not be content to remark the patent absurdity of the tales about supernatural beings and events in the "New Testament," but will go on to examine the purposes those tales were devised to serve. It requires no great critical acumen to perceive the appalling malice shown in Bolshevik promises that "the last shall be first"; the proletarian rancor of almost continual harping on the threat that rich men will be fried forever hereafter if they do not give all that they have to the poor and become paupers themselves; the frantic hatred of reason evinced by hostility to "the Greeks" who "seek after wisdom" and try to understand nature and the real world instead of drugging themselves with narcotic fantasies; the frightful malevolence of a god "who has made foolish the wisdom of this world" to profit a squalid and mindless rabble; and the hatred of all culture and civilization implicit in the election of illiterate boors as apostles and the insistence in the Drivel on the Mount on the need for bird-brains that "take no thought for the morrow" and, indeed, emulate the intellectual processes of vegetables.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"The Bear in the Bush", Liberty Bell (September 1990)
1990s

Wisdom , Men , God , Hostility

“Even things without life that give sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction of sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise you, except you utter by the tongue plain speech, how shall it be known what is said? For you shall be speaking into the air.”

Paul of Tarsus book First Epistle to the Corinthians

1 Corinthians 14:7-9 (as quoted in Catholic Bible Douay-Rehims http://www.biblebible.com/text-bible/Catholic-Bible/1_corinthians_14.asp)
First Epistle to the Corinthians

Life

“Feeling that the silver chord of life is loosing, and that his spirit is ready to quit her old companion the body, he extends himself on his bed — closes his eyes for the last time, with his own hands — folds his arms decently on his breast, then breathing out "Father of mercies! take me to thyself," — he fell asleep. Swift on angels' wings the brightening saint ascended; while voices more than human were heard (in Fancy's ear) warbling through the happy regions, and hymning the great procession towards the gates of heaven. His glorious coming was seen far off, and myriads of mighty angels hastened forth, with golden harps, to welcome the honored stranger.”

Mason Weems (1759–1825) fictionalizing biographer of George Washington

Description of Washington's death in Life of Washington (1800); this fanciful account bears no relation to the report of Washington's last words by his personal secretary Tobias Lear, who wrote in his journal (14 December 1799) http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/project/exhibit/mourning/lear.html: About ten o'clk he made several attempts to speak to me before he could effect it, at length he said, — "I am just going. Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the Vault in less than three days after I am dead." I bowed assent, for I could not speak. He then looked at me again and said, "Do you understand me? I replied "Yes." "Tis well" said he.

Life , Angels , Feeling , Time

“The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er;
And hearts that once beat high for praise
Now feel that pulse no more.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls, st. 1.
Irish Melodies http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html (1807–1834)

Music , Feeling , Soul , Sleep

“But what a voice! It was like the voice of a soul that had once lived in an Aeolian harp.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

Soul

“As when in harp and song adept, a bard
Unlab'ring strains the chord to a new lyre.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XXI. 406–407 (tr. William Cowper).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“You are the man newly arriving
at history’s worm-ravaged door,
the woman whose shadows are salves
upon the bleeding breasts of the earth,
the infant whose heartbeat
floods every harp in Paradise.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(Self Knowledge in the New Millennium, p. 57).
Book Sources, I Made My Boy Out of Poetry (1998)

History

“The harp at Nature's advent strung
Has never ceased to play;
The song the stars of morning sung
Has never died away.”

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

The Worship of Nature, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Star , Nature

“On the harp of the road what true melodies are being sounded! and its notes pierce the heart:
There the Eternal Fountain is playing its endless life-streams of birth and death.”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

Songs of Kabîr (1915)

Life , Death , Birth , Heart

“Come, gentle harp, and let me hold
Communion with thy melody,
And be my tale of sorrow told
To thee, my harp, and only thee.”

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

(27th September 1823) Extracts from my Pocket Book. Song
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

“The whole world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men who look young, act young, and everlastingly harp on the fact they are young, but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution which would be excessive in their grandfathers, are the curses of the world.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949)

Men , World , Thinking

“The crossbows twanged like harps of death.”

Harry Harrison (1925–2012) American science fiction author

Source: Deathworld (1960), p. 154

Death

“O lay me, ye that see the light, near some rock of my hills! let the thick hazels be around, let the rustling oak be near. Green be the place of my rest; let the sound of the distant torrent be heard. Daughter of Toscar, take the harp, and raise the lovely song of Selma, that sleep may overtake my soul in the midst of joy; that the dreams of my youth may return, and the days of the mighty Fingal.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

"The War of Inis-thona"
The Poems of Ossian

Love , Youth , Dreams , Soul

“p>Dear Land of Flowers, forgive me!—that I took
These snatches from thy glittering wealth of song,
And twisted to the uses of a book
Strains that to alien harps can ne'er belong.Thy gems shine purer in their native bed
Concealed, beyond the pry of vulgar eyes;
And there, through labyrinths of language led,
The patient student grasps the glowing prize.Yet many, in their race toward other goals,
May joy to feel, albeit at second-hand,
Some far faint heart-throb of poetic souls
Whose breath makes incense in the Flowery Land.”

Herbert Giles (1845–1935) British sinologist and diplomat

Chinese Poetry in English Verse http://library.umac.mo/ebooks/b25541080.pdf, Dedication (dated October 1898)

Books , Feeling , Soul , Flowers

“My voice in combination with the harp - which, by the way, I use because I've played it my entire life, not to make some statement about the harp - somehow has … coloured people's interpretations of the music and projected an idea of childlike or fairytale quality or innocence. Which sometimes prevents people from listening to the songs the way I would like them to be listened to.”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Sydney Morning Herald, 10 October 2005

Life , People , Music , Way

“I lay my harp on the curved table,
Sitting there idly, filled only with emotions.
Why should I trouble to play?
A breeze will come and sweep the strings.”

Bai Juyi (772–846) Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty

"The Harp", in The White Pony: An Anthology Of Chinese Poetry (1949), ed. Robert Payne, p. 220

“I can pass days
Stretch'd in the shade of those old cedar trees,
Watching the sunshine like a blessing fall,—
The breeze like music wandering o'er the boughs,—
Each tree a natural harp,— each different leaf
A different note, blent in one vast thanks-giving.”

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

The Ancestress (Spoken by Jaromir)
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Music , Nature , Tree

“Interestingly, she [Romila Thapar] has refrained from mentioning the persecution of Buddhists by Pushyamitra Shunga… and the melting of idols by king Harsha of Kashmir, which had so far figured most prominently in the writings of her school. I wonder whether she has realized that those allegations have no legs to stand upon, even though others of her school continue to harp on them.”

Pushyamitra Shunga King of Sunga Dynasty

Sita Ram Goel, Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them?, Appendix IV

School

“What is a harp but an over-sized cheese-slicer with cultural pretensions?”

Denis Norden (1922–2018) British comedy scriptwriter and television presenter

You can't have your Kayak and heat it

“Strange that a harp of thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long!”

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English hymnwriter, theologian and logician

Hymn 19, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book II.
Attributed from postum publications, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1773)

“The listener with no preconceptions hears massive waves of sound breaking over him and forms from them the image of a passionate soul seeking and finding the path to faith and peace in God through a life of struggle and a vigorous pursuit of ideals. It is impossible not to hear the confessional tone of this musical language; Liszt’s sonata becomes - perhaps involuntarily on the part of the composer - an autobiographical document and one which reveals an artist in the Faustian mold in the person of its author. As in the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, the underlying religious concept which dominates and permeates the whole work demands a special kind of approach. Whereas representations of human passions and conflicts force themselves on our understanding with their powerfully suggestive coloring, this concept only becomes manifest to those souls who are prepared to soar to the same heights. The equilibrium of the sonata’s hymnic chordal motif, the transformation of its defiant battle motif (first theme) into a triumphant fanfare, and its appearance in bright, high notes on the harp, together with the devotional atmosphere of the Andante, represent a particular challenge to the listener; he is, after all, also expected to grasp the wide-spanned arcs of sound which, from the first hesitant descending octaves to the radiant final chords, build up a graphic panorama of the various stages of progress of a human spirit filled with faith and hope. As the reflection of a remarkable artistic personality worthy of deep admiration and, by extension, of the whole Romantic period, Liszt’s B minor Sonata deserves lasting recognition.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

About the Liszt Sonata in B minor

Life , God , Peace , Faith

“As Ralph Ellison wrote more than 35 years ago, 'Why is it so often true that when critics confront the American as Negro, they suddenly drop their advanced critical armament and revert with an air of confident superiority to quite primitive modes of analysis?' Those matters accomplished by whites are routinely subjected to sophisticated modes of analysis. But the when the selfsame matters are accomplished by blacks, the opaque racial prism of analysis precludes such sophistication, and all is seen in black and white. And some who would not venture onto the more sophisticated analytical turf are quite content to play in the minor leagues of primitive harping. The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Confidence , Change

“Once more my harp awakens; once again,
Tho' all unworthy be my hand to twine
Th' etherial blossomings of poetry,
I would call forth its numbers, yet would feel
Its music fall like sunlight on my soul.”

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

Canto II, I
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)

Music , Feeling , Soul

“I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute; but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness.”

Themistocles (-524–-459 BC) Athenian statesman

As quoted by Plutarch, in Lives as translated by J. Langhorne and W. Langhorne (1836), p. 84 http://books.google.com/books?id=UFROAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA84
Variant translation: 'Tis true, I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute, but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderate city to glory and greatness.
Plutarch's Themistocles, 2:3 http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg010.perseus-eng1:2 "...tuning the lyre and handling the harp were no accomplishments of his, but rather taking in hand a city that was small and inglorious and making it glorious and great" "...λύραν μὲν ἁρμόσασθαι καὶ μεταχειρίσασθαι ψαλτήριον οὐκ ἐπίσταται, πόλιν δὲ μικρὰν καὶ ἄδοξον παραλαβὼν ἔνδοξον καὶ μεγάλην ἀπεργάσασθαι." (at Perseus Project)

Learning

“Indeed, one of the most cruel games anyone can play with self is the "not yet" game—hoping to sin just a bit more before ceasing; to enjoy the praise of the world a little longer before turning away from the applause; to win just once more in the wearying sweepstakes of materialism; to be chaste, but not yet; to be good neighbors, but not now. One can play upon the harp-strings of hesitations and reservations just so long, and then one faces that special moment—a moment when what has been sensed, mutely, suddenly finds voice and cries out with tears, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

Mark 9:24 http://scriptures.lds.org/en/mark/9#24
Why Not Now?, Ensign, Nov. 1974, p. 12 ( http://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/11/why-not-now?lang=eng).

World , Hope , Game , Sense

“Some gloomy autumn day, when the dreary north wind is howling, read Ossian to the accompaniment of the weird moans of an Æolian harp hung in the leafless branches of a tree, and you will experience a feeling of intense sadness, an infinite yearning for another state of existence, an intense disgust with the present.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

Par une de ces journées sombres qui attristent la fin de l'année, et que rend encore plus mélancoliques le souffle glacé du vent du Nord, écoutez, en lisant Ossian, la fantastique harmonie d'une harpe éolienne balancée au sommet d'un arbre dépouillé de verdure, et vous pourrez éprouver un sentiment profond de tristesse, un désir vague et infini d'une autre existence, un dégoût immense de celle-ci.
Hector Berlioz, Mémoires, ch. 39 http://www.hberlioz.com/Writings/HBM39.htm; Eleanor Holmes, Rachel Holmes and Ernest Newman (trans.) Memoirs of Hector Berlioz from 1803 to 1865 (New York: Dover, 1966) pp. 156-7.
Criticism

Sadness , Feeling , Autumn , Tree

“The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him;
His father's sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

The Minstrel Boy, st. 1.
Irish Melodies http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html (1807–1834)

Death , War , Boy

“For my spirit hath left her earthly home
And found a nobler dwelling,
Where the music of light is that of life,
And the starry harps are swelling.”

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

The Golden Violet - Amenaïde
The Golden Violet (1827)

Life , Music , Home , Light

“The traditional picture of the blind old singer of Chios is largely made up of memories that go back to the time when a poet was a vates— a priestly and God-inspired seer. His blindness is merely the outward sign of the inward light that fills his being and enables him to see things others cannot see. This bodily infirmity expresses— as does the lameness of the divine smith Hephaestus—a second idea that was current in primitive times, that a maker of poems, ornaments and other products of handicraft can only come from the ranks of those who are unfit for war and foray. But apart from this feature, the legendary ‘Homer’ is an almost perfect example of the mythical poet who was still half-divine, a wonder-worker and a prophet. We find the clearest embodiment of this idea in Orpheus, the primeval singer who had his harp from Apollo and instruction in the art of song from the Muse herself; with his music he could move not merely men and beasts but even rocks and could reclaim Eurydice from the bonds of death.”

Arnold Hauser (1892–1978) Hungarian art historian

The Social History of Art, Volume I. From Prehistoric Times to the Middle Ages, 1999, Chapter III. Greece and Rome

Death , Men , God , War

“To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.”

Thomas Gray The Bard

I. 2. line 28
The Bard (1757)

“The critics barged in to harp on every decision we made... Sadly, I began to doubt myself. Maybe I was too young. Maybe I wasn’t a good enough sailor.”

Abby Sunderland (1993) Camera Assistant, Inspirational Speaker and Sailor

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 48

Decision

“T is believ'd that this harp which I wake now for thee
Was a siren of old who sung under the sea.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

The Origin of the Harp.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Sea

“While man regards his body as a harp of pleasure to be played upon so long as its strings can be made to vibrate, so long will he continue to travel down the hill of physical decadence and degeneration in spite of quarantine laws and the most minute sanitary regulations. But when he recognizes his divine origin and obligations, and himself as the crowning masterpiece of creation, his body a precious thing, to be sacredly preserved, developed, expanded, and purified for service for humanity in this world, and a never-ending opportunity for development and joyous existence in the world to come, then only will he begin to climb toward the heights from which he has fallen, where he may once more stand forth as the crowning glory of creation, the masterpiece of God, “the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.””

John Harvey Kellogg (1852–1943) American physician

Source: The Living Temple, pp. 431-432

God , Pleasure , World , Law

“Come, then, with what voice Thou wilt come, Thou power- clad Messenger of my Redeemer! Come with thunder on Thy tongue, or with a sweet "harp of ten strings;" come to us simple as a little child, or wise as a scribe instructed of God; but, O! let us only feel that fire in Thy message which lies not in sentences nor in tones, but in a heart itself inflamed from above, and pouring fire into our hearts.”

William Arthur (minister) (1819–1901) Wesleyan Methodist minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 323.

God , Feeling , Heart

“Their heavenly harps a lower strain began, and in soft music mourn the fall of man.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Music

“I am free from ties and can live a life of retirement.
When I rise from sleep, I play with books and harp.”

Tao Yuanming Shady

"Shady, shady the wood in front of the Hall"
Translated by Arthur Waley

Life , Books , Sleep

“Hey folks, tonight I wanna talk about global warming. Now, The World is Hot and Flat Society is growing increasingly hysterical and that indeed is causing me to sweat a little. In the last month or so, I've heard suggestions that those skeptical of Al Gore's spiritual crisis are deniers and one good way to serve the planet would be to have one less kid and I've also read that mankind is 'a virus' and human beings are 'the AIDS of the earth.' Global warming is officially becoming creepy and I can't tell yet if it's facisitc or fetishistic but it's kinda like piercing or tattoos, I don't even wanna get one, because I see how hooked people are and it spooks me. I just find it odd that we've come to a point in history where if I don't concede that if Manhattan will be completely submerged in 2057 I'm thought to be a delusional contrarian by some of my more zealous fellow citizens. I'm sorry Angst Squad, but if we commissioned a public works project (let's call it 'The Manhattan Project') and tried our hardest to submerge Manhattan in the next 50 years, we couldn't pull it off, mainly because it wouldn't be environmentally sound and you guys would hang it up in the permitting process. Simply put, I can't worry about the earth right now because I'm too worried about the world. Why can't I take terrorism as seriously as Al Gore takes global warming? There are times that you think that liberals only fear car bombs if they have leaky exhaust systems. And why am I constantly beaten over the head with 'the delicate balance of nature'? Am I the only one who watches Animal Planet? Every time I turn it on, I see some demented harp seal chucking peguins down his gullet like they were maitre d'Tic-Tacs. To me, nature always appears more unbalanced than Gary Busey with a clogged eustachian tube. Listen, the weather is just like Hilary's explanation for her war vote: we just don't know, do we? We're here to miss our next Tuesday's weather much less the year 2057. Relax, we'll replace oil when we need to. American ingenuity will kick in and the next great fortune will be made. It's not pretty, but it is historically accurate. We need to run out of oil first. That's why I drive an SUV: so we run out of it more quickly. I consider myself at the vanguard of the environmental movement and I think the individuals who insist on driving hybrids are just prolonging our dillemma and I think that's just selfish. Come on, don't you care about our Mother Earth? Don'tcha?”

Dennis Miller (1953) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actor

6/17 The Half Hour News Hour
The Buck Starts Here

War , People , World , Fear

“… my mother will settle on the rug and unclip the bellows, pulling and pushing them with a mild aquatic motion with her left hand, the fingers of the right hand flowering upon the keys, the wedding-bangle suspended around her wrist. Each time the bellows are pushed, the round holes on the back open and close like eyes. Without the body music is not possible; it provides the hollow space for resonance as does the curved wooden box of the violin or the round urn of the sitar. At the moment of singing, breath tips in the swelling diaphragm as water does in a pitcher. The voice-box itself is a microscopic harp, its cords tautening and relaxing with each inflection.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

Afternoon Raag (1993)

Music , Flowers , Wedding , Water

“Ought the world to be peopled by the children of hatred or disgust, the children of lust and loathing, or by the welcome babes of mutual love? Is it possible that an infinitely wise and compassionate God insists that a helpless woman shall remain the wife of a cruel wretch? Can this add to the joy of Paradise, or tend to keep one harp in tune?”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Is Divorce Wrong? (1889)

Love , God , Children , People

“O, Harpo Death and thy clanking harp, hear!”

Harpo Marx (1888–1964) American comedian

poem, Gregory Corso: Army
About

Death

“O harp and altar, of the fury fused,
(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)
Terrific threshold of the prophet’s pledge,
Prayer of pariah, and the lover’s cry”

Hart Crane (1899–1932) American writer

To Brooklyn Bridge, Stanza 8; from The Bridge

Lovers , Cry

“I was excited by the story of Yayati. This exchange of ages between the father and the son, which seemed to be terribly powerful and terribly modern. At the same time I was reading a lot of Sartre and the Existentialist. This consistent harping on responsibility which the Existentialist indulge in suddenly seemed to link up with the story of Yayati.”

Girish Raghunath Karnad (1938–2019) Indian playwright

This story of Yayati from the Mahabhrata generated interst in him to become a playwright and he explains this here.[Sahu, Nandini title=The Post-colonial Space: Writing the Self and the Nation, http://books.google.com/books?id=xs_tj0tDnnwC&pg=PA59, 2007, Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 978-81-269-0777-9, 120]

Age , Time , Reading

“I was never interested in the obvious, or in the details one takes for granted, and everybody seemed to be addicted to the obvious, being astonished by it, and forever harping about the details which I had long ago weighted, measured, and discarded as irrelevant and useless. If you can measure it, don't. If you can weigh it, it isn't worth the bother. It isn't what you're after. It isn't going to get it. My wisdom was visual and as swift as vision. I looked, I saw, I understood, I felt, "That's that, where do we go from here?"”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

.
Here Comes There Goes You Know Who (1961)

Wisdom

“Hail, Carril of other times! Thy voice is like the harp in the halls of Tura.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

Book V
The Poems of Ossian, Fingal, an ancient Epic Poem

Time

“History as she is harped. Rite words in rote order. (pp. 108-109)”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1960s, The Medium is the Message (1967)

History

“One thing you must know: Just as there is no comparison between actually hearing the sound of harp-strings sweetly plucked and listening to someone talking about it, so too there is no comparison between words which are received in pure grace, issuing from a living heart, spoken by living lips, and those self-same words committed to dry parchment — especially words in German. For these somehow grow chill, losing their vitality like roses cut. For the enchanting melody which, more than anything else, moves human hearts, then fades away, so that the words are received now into the dryness of dry hearts. No harp-strings were ever so sweet but, when stretched across dry timber, they fall silent. An unloving heart can no more understand a love-filled speaker than a German an Italian. Therefore, an eager enquirer should hasten to the out-flowing streams of these sweet teachings so that she may see and observe them at their source in all its living and wondrous beauty – that is, the in-flowing of present grace which is able to restore dead hearts to life.”

Henry Suso (1295–1366) Dominican friar and mystic

The Exemplar, The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom

Love , Life , Beauty , Understanding

“No other language than some soft sweet sounds
She had caught from the voices of the birds
When singing to the morning, and the notes
Sent from the waterfall, when, like a harp,
It held discourse in music with the wind.”

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

The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Music , Bird , Singing

“Celtic civilization was tribal, but by no means savage or uncultivated. People who regarded the theft of a harp from a bard as a crime second only to an attack on the tribal chieftain cannot be regarded as wanting in cultivated feeling.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Scottish Folklore and Opera (1992).

People , Feeling

“Oh! once the harp of Innisfail
Was strung full high to notes of gladness;
But yet it often told a tale
Of more prevailing sadness.”

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer

O'Connor's Child, st. 1 (1810)

Sadness

“He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced,
As some vast river of unfailing source,
Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed
And opened new fountains in the human heart.”

Robert Pollok book The Course of Time

Book iv, line 684.
The Course of Time (published 1827)

Heart

“My harp and I a-wandering
Went over Snowdon Mountain,
From Anglesey to Swansea Bay
It sang like any fountain.”

Eleanor Farjeon (1881–1965) English children's writer

The Welsh Harp
More Nursery Rhymes of London Town (1917)

Mountain

“Life passes, with us all, a day at a time; so it passed with our friend Tom, till two years were gone. Though parted from all his soul held dear, and though often yearning for what lay beyond, still was he never positively and consciously miserable; for, so well is the harp of human feeling strung, that nothing but a crash that breaks every string can wholly mar its harmony; and, on looking back to seasons which in review appear to us as those of deprivation and trial, we can remember that each hour, as it glided, brought its diversions and alleviations, so that, though not happy wholly, we were not, either, wholly miserable.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Ch. 22 "The Grass Withereth — the Flower Fadeth".

Life , Feeling , Soul , Appearance

“She leant upon her harp, and thousands looked
On her in love and wonder—thousands knelt
And worshipp'd in her presence—burning tears,
And words that died in utterance, and a pause
Of breathless, agitated eagerness,
First gave the full heart's homage: then came forth
A shout that rose to heaven; and the hills,
The distant valleys, all rang with the name
Of the Æolian Sappho—every heart
Found in itself some echo to her song.”

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

Sappho from The London Literary Gazette (4th May 1822) Poetic Sketches. 2nd Series - Sketch the First
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Love , Tear , Distant , Heart

“In 1947, Muslim society succeeded in extorting recognition as a separate culture and nation and getting the country vivisected on that basis. It is another matter that… we go on harping on the theme of the truncated India’s belonging to Hindus and Muslims alike and its culture’s being a composite culture, a culture composed of Hindu and Muslim religio-cultural traditions.”

Harsh Narain (1921–1995) Indian writer

Source: Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (1990), p. 24

Country

“It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From Angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold;
"Peace on the earth, good will to man
From Heaven’s all gracious King."
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.”

Edmund Sears (1810–1876) American minister

The Angels' Song ("It Came Upon A Midnight Clear", 1849).

World , Peace , Angels , Singing

“p>The sportive hopes that used to chase their shifting shadows on,
Like children playing in the sun, are gone—for ever gone;
And on a careless, sullen peace, my double-fronted mind,
Like Janus, when his gates are shut, looks forward and behind.Apollo placed his harp, of old, awhile upon a stone,
Which has resounded since, when struck, a breaking harp string's tone;
And thus my heart, though wholly now from early softness free,
If touch'd, will yield the music yet, it first received of thee.<p”

Edward Coote Pinkney A Picture Song

A Picture Song.

Children , Peace , Hope , Music

“The others got heart, I got the harp.
They grieved, had fun, me not, me not.
O wretched me, can't live, nor part:
my heart throbs not, but tingles, and rings!

O dire fate, the hardest lot:
no peace grants the night, the day no less,
no mercy shows time, nor eternity:
just a jeering and tingling heart-less-ness.”

Eino Leino (1878–1926) Finnish poet and journalist

Eino Leino. "The Harp-Of-the-Wind," (1905), Leevi Lehto (transl.), in: Leevi Lehto. Leevi Lehto. Finnish poetry: then and now, January 2005. Published online at upenn.edu. Accessed 20-03-2013

Fate , Peace , Time , Heart

“What I'd like to do now - well, what I'd like to do now is grow my beard very long, weave it into my pubes and strum it like a harp.”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Cosmic Jam (tour 1995, DVD 2005, 2006)

“I'm really interested in the harp as a fully actualized, self-contained way of presenting songs. That there is a bass in the harp - there is a way to create a rhythmic sense without drums - there's a way to have all sorts of textural variations and expressive variations.”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Sunday Service, 13 December 2004
Context: I'm not terribly interested in playing harp on other people's music right now. Partly because I feel like many people view the harp as this kind of gimmick. You know, like they have songs that are fully realized, complete songs, and then they think "How do we make this special? - Ooh, let's bring the harp in!" and they kind of want a harpist to play a glissando and play some heavenly noise in the background. I'm really interested in the harp as a fully actualized, self-contained way of presenting songs. That there is a bass in the harp - there is a way to create a rhythmic sense without drums - there's a way to have all sorts of textural variations and expressive variations.
I also don't want to feel bound to the harp, I'd be interested in bringing other instruments in at some time. But I think the harp has been viewed in one particular way for so long, and has been limited for so long, that I feel like I am really interested in stretching the boundaries of what it's capable of doing and how it's perceived.

Way , Sense

“I have been a course, I have been an eagle.
I have been a coracle in the seas:
I have been compliant in the banquet.
I have been a drop in a shower;
I have been a sword in the grasp of the hand
I have been a shield in battle.
I have been a string in a harp,
Disguised for nine years,
in water, in foam.
I have been sponge in the fire,
I have been wood in the covert”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Battle of the Trees

Water , Sea

“Things proceed as they were ordered, in their nice, and well-adjusted, and perfect harmony; so that as the hand of the skilful artist gathers music from the harp-strings, history calls it forth from the well-tuned chords of time.”

George Bancroft (1800–1891) American historian and statesman

Literary and Historical Miscellanies (1855), The Necessity, the Reality, and the Promise of the Progress of the Human Race (1854)
Context: The glory of God is not contingent on man's good will, but all existence subserves his purposes. The system of the universe is as a celestial poem, whose beauty is from all eternity, and must not be marred by human interpolations. Things proceed as they were ordered, in their nice, and well-adjusted, and perfect harmony; so that as the hand of the skilful artist gathers music from the harp-strings, history calls it forth from the well-tuned chords of time. Not that this harmony can be heard during the tumult of action. Philosophy comes after events, and gives the reason of them, and describes the nature of their results. The great mind of collective man may, one day, so improve in self-consciousness as to interpret the present and foretell the future; but as yet, the end of what is now happening, though we ourselves partake in it, seems to fall out by chance. All is nevertheless one whole; individuals, families, peoples, the race, march in accord with the Divine will; and when any part of the destiny of humanity is fulfilled, we see the ways of Providence vindicated. The antagonisms of imperfect matter and the perfect idea, of liberty and necessary law, become reconciled. What seemed irrational confusion, appears as the web woven by light, liberty and love. But this is not perceived till a great act in the drama of life is finished. The prayer of the patriarch, when he desired to behold the Divinity face to face, was denied; but he was able to catch a glimpse of Jehovah, after He had passed by; and so it fares with our search for Him in the wrestlings of the world. It is when the hour of conflict is over, that history comes to a right understanding of the strife, and is ready to exclaim: "Lo! God is here, and we knew it not."

Music , History , Time , Perfection

“Again he struck the harp and began the jig. But this time it was such music as never came from a harp.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Harper of the Stones (1986).
Context: Again he struck the harp and began the jig. But this time it was such music as never came from a harp. It was the wildest, strangest music you ever heard, full of the sound of birds and the cries of animals and the wind and the rain, and the thunder and the lightning, and the dashing of huge waves against the shores of a great cold ocean that was formed from ice that had made its way slowly down from Ultima Thule. It was the sound of a world before mankind. It was the sound of the great merriment God must have known during the long days of Creation.

Music , Time

“His mind fell asleep. His wits fell awake. His cock trembled like a harp-string.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 42 (p. 881)

“Of true benevolence, its charms divine,
With other motives to call forth its power,
And its grand triumphs, multiplied beyond
All former bounds, in this its golden age,
Humbly I sing, awed by the holy theme;
A theme exalted, though as yet unsung,
In beauty rich, of inspiration full,
And worthy of a nobler harp than that
From which heroic strains sublimely sound.”

Carlos Wilcox (1794–1827) American poet

Remains of the Rev. Carlos Wilcox: with a memoir of his life (1828), p. 99 https://archive.org/details/remainsofrevcarl00wilc/page/100/mode/2up
Poetry

Motivation , Beauty , Singing , Age