Quotes about tone (549 quotes, page 6) | Quotes of famous people

“The calm and tolerant atmosphere that prevailed during the elections depicts the type of South Africa we can build. It set the tone for the future. We might have our differences, but we are one people with a common destiny in our rich variety of culture, race and tradition.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1990s, Victory speech (1994)
Context: The calm and tolerant atmosphere that prevailed during the elections depicts the type of South Africa we can build. It set the tone for the future. We might have our differences, but we are one people with a common destiny in our rich variety of culture, race and tradition.
People have voted for the party of their choice and we respect that. This is democracy.
I hold out a hand of friendship to the leaders of all parties and their members, and ask all of them to join us in working together to tackle the problems we face as a nation. An ANC government will serve all the people of South Africa, not just ANC members.

People , Future

“Then, as the metal shapes more various grew,
And, hurled upon each other, resonance drew,
Each gave new tones, the revelations dim
Of some external soul that spoke for him”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

The Legend of Jubal (1869)
Context: Then, as the metal shapes more various grew,
And, hurled upon each other, resonance drew,
Each gave new tones, the revelations dim
Of some external soul that spoke for him:
The hollow vessel's clang, the clash, the boom,
Like light that makes wide spiritual room
And skyey spaces in the spaceless thought,
To Jubal such enlarged passion brought,
That love, hope, rage, and all experience,
Were fused in vaster being, fetching thence
Concords and discords, cadences and cries
That seemed from some world-shrouded soul-to rise,
Some rapture more intense, some mightier rage,
Some living sea that burst the bounds of man's brief age.

Soul

“When I was a young writer there had been a stage where Camus, almost more than any other contemporary literary figure, radically set the tone for my own view of life and history.”

William Styron book Darkness Visible

Source: Darkness Visible (1990), II
Context: When I was a young writer there had been a stage where Camus, almost more than any other contemporary literary figure, radically set the tone for my own view of life and history. I read his novel The Stranger somewhat later than I should have — I was in my early thirties — but after finishing it I received the stab of recognition that proceeds from reading the work of a writer who has wedded moral passion to a style of great beauty and whose unblinking vision is capable of frightening the soul to its marrow. The cosmic loneliness of Meursault, the hero of that novel, so haunted me that when I set out to write The Confessions of Nat Turner I was impelled to use Camus’s device of having the story flow from the point of view of a narrator isolated in his jail cell during the hours before his execution. For me there was a spiritual connection between Meursault’s frigid solitude and the plight of Nat Turner — his rebel predecessor in history by a hundred years — likewise condemned and abandoned by man and God. Camus’s essay “Reflections on the Guillotine” is a virtually unique document, freighted with terrible and fiery logic; it is difficult to conceive of the most vengeful supporter of the death penalty retaining the same attitude after exposure to scathing truths expressed with such ardor and precision. I know my thinking was forever altered by that work, not only turning me around completely, convincing me of the essential barbarism of capital punishment, but establishing substantial claims on my conscience in regard to matters of responsibility at large. Camus was a great cleanser of my intellect, ridding me of countless sluggish ideas, and through some of the most unsettling pessimism I had ever encountered causing me to be aroused anew by life’s enigmatic promise.

Life , History

“A moderate addiction to money may not always be hurtful; but when taken in excess it is nearly always bad for the health, it limits one's chance of indulging in nice simple pleasures, and in many cases it lowers the whole moral tone.”

Clarence Day (1874–1935) American writer

""Annual Report of the League for Improving the Lives of the Rich" in The Crow's Nest (1921)
Context: The rich are not really a bad lot. We must not judge by appearances. If it weren't for their money they would be indistinguishable from the rest of us. But money brings out their weaknesses, naturally. Would it not bring out ours? A moderate addiction to money may not always be hurtful; but when taken in excess it is nearly always bad for the health, it limits one's chance of indulging in nice simple pleasures, and in many cases it lowers the whole moral tone. The rich admit this — of each other; but what can they do? Once a man has begun to accumulate money, it is unnatural to stop. He actually gets in a state where he wants more and more.
This may seem incomprehensible to those who have never suffered from affluence, and yet they would feel the same way, in a millionaire's place. A man begins by thinking that he can have money without being its victim. He will admit that other men addicted to wealth find it hard to be moderate, but he always is convinced that he is different and has more self-control. But the growth of an appetite is determined by nature, not men, and this is as true of getting money as of anything else. As soon as a man is used to a certain amount, no matter how large, his ideas of what is suitable expand. That is the way men are made.

Money , Health , Pleasure , Chance

“Life is a roar of bargain and battle, but in the very heart of it there rises a mystic spiritual tone that gives meaning to the whole. It transmutes the dull details into romance. It reminds us that our only but wholly adequate significance is as parts of the unimaginable whole. It suggests that even while living we are living to ends outside ourselves”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

Address to the Harvard Alumni Association to the Class of '61, in Speeches (1913), p. 96.
1910s

Life , Heart , Parting

“Only the professional remembers the music itself, timbres, tones and textures.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

K-Linesː A Theory of Memory (1980)
Context: Concrete concepts are not necessarily the simplest ones. A novice best remembers "being at" a concert. The amateur remembers more of what it "sounded like." Only the professional remembers the music itself, timbres, tones and textures.

Music

“Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Human Personality (1943), p. 61
Context: The notion of rights is linked with the notion of sharing out, of exchange, of measured quantity. It has a commercial flavor, essentially evocative of legal claims and arguments. Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.

“The list ended with a new charge and I would swear on a stack of thousand credit notes that high that there was a hurt tone in his voice.
"In addition the charge of assaulting a police robot will be added to your record."”

Harry Harrison The Stainless Steel Rat

Original short-story, "The Stainless Steel Rat" in Astounding magazine (August 1957) http://www.iol.ie/~carrollm/hh/ssrshort.htm
The Stainless Steel Rat
Context: When the office door opened suddenly I knew the game was up. It had been a money-maker — but it was all over. As the cop walked in I sat back in the chair and put on a happy grin. He had the same sombre expression and heavy foot that they all have — and the same lack of humour. I almost knew to the word what he was going to say before he uttered a syllable.
"James Bolivar diGriz I arrest you on the charge—"
I was waiting for the word charge, I thought it made a nice touch that way. As he said it I pressed the button that set off the charge of black powder in the ceiling, the crossbeam buckled and the three-ton safe dropped through right on the top of the cop's head. He squashed very nicely, thank you. The cloud of plaster dust settled and all I could see of him was one hand, slightly crumpled. It twitched a bit and the index finger pointed at me accusingly. His voice was a little muffled by the safe and sounded a bit annoyed. In fact he repeated himself a bit.
"On the charge of illegal entry, theft, forgery—"
He ran on like that for quite a while, it was an impressive list but I had heard it all before. I didn't let it interfere with my stuffing all the money from the desk drawers into my suitcase. The list ended with a new charge and I would swear on a stack of thousand credit notes that high that there was a hurt tone in his voice.
"In addition the charge of assaulting a police robot will be added to your record."

Hurt

“While the heart beats, bruise it — it is your only opportunity; while the eye can still turn towards you with moist, timid entreaty, freeze it with an icy unanswering gaze; while the ear, that delicate messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul, can still take in the tones of kindness, put it off with hard civility, or sneering compliment, or envious affectation of indifference; while the creative brain can still throb with the sense of injustice, with the yearning for brotherly recognition — make haste — oppress it with your ill-considered judgements, your trivial comparisons, your careless misrepresentations.”

George Eliot book The Lifted Veil

The Lifted Veil (1859); Eliot here quotes the Latin epitaph of Jonathan Swift, translated as "Where savage indignation can lacerate his heart no more" · The Lifted Veil online at Wikisource
Context: I wish to use my last hours of ease and strength in telling the strange story of my experience. I have never fully unbosomed myself to any human being; I have never been encouraged to trust much in the sympathy of my fellow-men. But we have all a chance of meeting with some pity, some tenderness, some charity, when we are dead: it is the living only who cannot be forgiven — the living only from whom men's indulgence and reverence are held off, like the rain by the hard east wind. While the heart beats, bruise it — it is your only opportunity; while the eye can still turn towards you with moist, timid entreaty, freeze it with an icy unanswering gaze; while the ear, that delicate messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul, can still take in the tones of kindness, put it off with hard civility, or sneering compliment, or envious affectation of indifference; while the creative brain can still throb with the sense of injustice, with the yearning for brotherly recognition — make haste — oppress it with your ill-considered judgements, your trivial comparisons, your careless misrepresentations. The heart will by and by be still — "ubi saeva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit" the eye will cease to entreat; the ear will be deaf; the brain will have ceased from all wants as well as from all work. Then your charitable speeches may find vent; then you may remember and pity the toil and the struggle and the failure; then you may give due honour to the work achieved; then you may find extenuation for errors, and may consent to bury them.

Soul , Sense , Heart , Indifference

“Before there was any water there were tides of fire, both our tones flow from the older fountain.”

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet

"Continent's End" in Tamar and Other Poems (1924)
Context: Mother, though my song's measure is like your surf-beat's ancient rhythm I never learned it of you.
Before there was any water there were tides of fire, both our tones flow from the older fountain.

Water

“I must confess that this is no personal achievement of mine; this attitude was never striven for.... [ellipsis is in original, unabridged text] I've been shaped to this mental stance by the kind of experiences that I have fallen heir to. I say this neither in a tone of apology nor to persuade the reader in my ideological direction, but to give him a hinting clue as to why certain ideas and values appeal to me more than others, and why certain perspectives are stressed in these speeches.”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

White Man, Listen! (1957)

Idea , Personality

“If religious liberty includes, as it must, the right to communicate such experiences to others, it seems to me an impossible task for juries to separate fancied ones from real ones, dreams from happenings, and hallucinations from true clairvoyance. Such experiences, like some tones and colors, have existence for one, but none at all for another. They cannot be verified to the minds of those whose field of consciousness does not include religious insight. When one comes to trial which turns on any aspect of religious belief or representation, unbelievers among his judges are likely not to understand, and are almost certain not to believe, him.”

Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) American judge

78 U.S. 93
Judicial opinions, United States v. Ballard (1944)

Dreams , Color , Communication , Understanding

“A composer's awareness of the plurality of functions of his own tools forms the basis for his responsibility just as, in everyday life, every man's responsibility begins with the recognition of the multiplicity of human races, conditions, needs, and ideals. I would go as far as to say (as my anger comes back) that any attempt to codify musical reality into a kind of imitation grammar (I refer mainly to the efforts associated with the Twelve-Tone System) is a brand of fetishism which shares with Fascism and racism the tendency to reduce live processes to immobile, labeled objects, the tendency to deal with formalities rather than substance.”

Luciano Berio (1925–2003) Italian composer

"The Composer on His Work : Meditation on a Twelve-Tone Horse", in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music : A Continuing Symposium (1996) edited by Richard Kostelanetz and Joseph Darby, , p. 169
Context: A composer's awareness of the plurality of functions of his own tools forms the basis for his responsibility just as, in everyday life, every man's responsibility begins with the recognition of the multiplicity of human races, conditions, needs, and ideals. I would go as far as to say (as my anger comes back) that any attempt to codify musical reality into a kind of imitation grammar (I refer mainly to the efforts associated with the Twelve-Tone System) is a brand of fetishism which shares with Fascism and racism the tendency to reduce live processes to immobile, labeled objects, the tendency to deal with formalities rather than substance. Claude Lévi-Strauss describes (though to illustrate a different point) a captain at sea, his ship reduced to a frail raft without sails, who, by enforcing a meticulous protocol on his crew, is able to distract them from nostalgia for a safe harbor and from the desire for a destination.

Life , Music , Reality , Effort

“Get in touch with the way the other person feels. Feelings are 55% body language, 38% tone and 7% words.”

Unknown author

Way , Feeling , Personality

“Byron! how sweetly sad thy melody!
Attuning still the soul to tenderness,
As if soft Pity, with unusual stress,
Had touched her plaintive lute, and thou, being by,
Hadst caught the tones, nor suffered them to die.
O'ershading sorrow doth not make thee less
Delightful: thou thy griefs dost dress
With a bright halo, shining beamily,
As when a cloud a golden moon doth veil,
Its sides are tinged with a resplendent glow,
Through the dark robe oft amber rays prevail,
And like fair veins in sable marble flow;
Still warble, dying swan! still tell the tale,
The enchanting tale, the tale of pleasing woe. ”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Sadness , Soul , Suffering

“Not "brook" [in German: Bach], but "sea" should he [Johann Sebastian Bach] be called because of his infinite, inexhaustible richness in tone combinations and harmonies.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

Sea

“I don't like it,"" said Lenina. ""I don't like it."" She liked even less what awaited her at the entrance to the pueblo, where their guide had left them while he went inside for instructions. The dirt, to start with, the piles of rubbish, the dust, the dogs, the flies. Her face wrinkled up into a grimace of disgust. She held her handkerchief to her nose.
""But how can they live like this?"" she broke out in a voice of indignant incredulity. (It wasn't possible.)
Bernard shrugged his shoulders philosophically. ""Anyhow,"" he said, ""they've been doing it for the last five or six thousand years. So I suppose they must be used to it by now.""
""But cleanliness is next to fordliness,"" she insisted.
""Yes, and civilization is sterilization,"" Bernard went on, concluding on a tone of irony the second hypnopaedic lesson in elementary hygiene. ""But these people have never heard of Our Ford, and they aren't civilized."" ”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

People , Dogs

“I think I have a sense of how things need to sound, how to pull an audience in with tone, timing, and pacing. That affects a lot of my writing, too, being hyper aware of how an audience might read something. I want what’s happening on the page to mimic what my body would do on stage. A lot of that came out in the audiobook. I think I would have struggled to record the audiobook without having stage experience because it’s a lot of work to maintain that kind of performance voice.”

Elizabeth Acevedo American poet and author

Source: On how she aimed to preserve the spoken word feel for her book The Poet X in “Debut Author Elizabeth Acevedo on 'The Poet X'” https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/76224-q-a-with-elizabeth-acevedo.html in Publishers Weekly (2018 Mar 6)

Sense , Thinking , Time , Reading

“Finding this quiet appropriation of my property a little too much, I took the liberty to ask for their return; they gravely replied that my diamond and other jewels were confiscated to the profit of Great Britain I returned sadly to my inn... I resigned myself, however, and slept the most profound sleep. I do not know what passed during the night; but the next morning, when I returned to the Custom House, I found the greatest change in manners and faces. The customs authorities spoke to me in the most respectful tone. They made a million excuses and gave me back my jewel box...”

Alessandro Cagliostro (1743–1795) Italian occultist

Cagliostro’s Letter to the English People (1787)

Sleep , Night , Housing , Box

“This evolution toward noise-sound is only possible today. The ear of an eighteenth century man never could have withstood the discordant intensity of some of the chords produced by our orchestras (whose performers are three times as numerous); on the other hand our ears rejoice in it, for they are attuned to modern life, rich in all sorts of noises. But our ears far from being satisfied, keep asking for bigger acoustic sensations. However, musical sound is too restricted in the variety and the quality of its tones. Music marks time in this small circle and vainly tries to create a new variety of tones... We must break at all cost from this restrictive circle of pure sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds.”

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) Electronic music pioneer and Futurist painter

Source: 1910's, The Art of Noise', 1913, p. 6

Music , Life , Time

“My mother used to say that my tones are all crooked: it’s like hearing a song sung out of tune.”

Madeleine Thien (1974) Canadian writer

On her limited Cantonese skills in “Madeleine Thien: ‘In China, you learn a lot from what people don’t tell you’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/08/madeleine-thien-interview-do-not-say-we-have-nothing in The Guardian (2016 Oct 8)

“The bases of music are rhythm and harmony. Rhythm is ordered recurrence in time… As the planets move around the sun, they repeat their orbits periodically; thus there is already a primitive kind of rhythm in their motion. …Harmony …can be considered a special kind of rhythm. …pure musical tones are produced when the vibrations are… periodic or… repeat themselves regularly in time. Two tones harmonize if their intervals of repetition are in rhythm—or, in mathematical language, if their periods are in proportion.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Kepler... in the third book of Harmonice mundi... attempted to make other... related, connections between musical harmony and mathematical proportion.
Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)

Music , Sun , Time , Mathematics

“One thing I have to say about Japanese anime is that there’s a certain sort of tone there that bypasses the Asian part. And the characters really turn into something more Western. I’d like to see a true Japanese character. We don’t need to make the eyes look round, we don’t need the light in her hair. We can have dark hair and the eyes look like mine. They can be speaking English. We have Asian-Americans. And certainly there are plenty of people from Hawaii that are very Asian and totally local. It’s part of America…”

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (1950) American actor

On Japanese anime in “Comic-Con 2001: An Interview With Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa” http://fanboyplanet.com/comic-con-2001-an-interview-with-cary-hiroyuki-tagawa/ in Fanboy Planet (2001 Jul 27)

Light , People , Animals , Making love

“To allude negligently to Kafka, Yeats, Proust, Stendhal, or St. John of the Cross in a tone of of-course-you-know-them is canonical for Mademoiselle contributors, whatever the topic in hand.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

"Up the Ladder from Charm to Vogue", p. 186
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

“For all his derogation, he truly believed in the modern, as subversive of established values, a mine or fuse laid under the terrain of the virtuous; the words, modern, secular, experimental, were drawled out by him in a seductive, blandishing tone, like a veiled erotic invitation.”

Mary McCarthy book The Groves of Academe

Source: The Groves of Academe (1952), Ch. VI, p. 383

“Adopt a gentle tone when speaking, for verily the tone at times, has a greater impact than the speech.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

Time

“I have spent my life building bridges and tearing down barriers — not building walls. That’s why I find Donald Trump’s belief that an American-born judge of Mexican descent is incapable of fairly presiding over his case is not only dead wrong, it is un-American. As the Presidential campaign progressed, I was hoping the rhetoric would tone down and reflect a campaign that was inclusive, thoughtful and principled. While I oppose the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump’s latest statements, in context with past attacks on Hispanics, women and the disabled like me, make it certain that I cannot and will not support my party’s nominee for President regardless of the political impact on my candidacy or the Republican Party. It is absolutely essential that we are guided by a commander-in-chief with a responsible and proper temperament, discretion and judgment. Our President must be fit to command the most powerful military the world has ever seen, including an arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons. After much consideration, I have concluded that Donald Trump has not demonstrated the temperament necessary to assume the greatest office in the world.”

Mark Kirk (1959) former U.S. junior senator from Illinois

As quoted in Sen. Mark Kirk withdraws support for Trump https://web.archive.org/web/20160608015204/http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/sen-mark-kirk-withdraws-support-for-trump/ by Lynn Sweet, 7 June 2016, Chicago Sun-Times.

Dead , Support , Past , Hope

“If I am elected, there may be an opportunity to change the tone for the better.”

Nicola Sturgeon (1970) First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party

Said while campaigning for the SNP leadership in 2014. Khaleeli, Homa (30 September 2014) Is post-referendum Scotland a feminist paradise? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/30/post-referendum-scotland-feminist-paradise on the Guardian website. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
2014

Change

“While he and his idol, Hank Williams, have both affected generations with a plaintive veracity of voice that has set them apart, Jones has an additional gift—a voice of exceptional range, natural elegance, and lucent tone. Gliding toward high tenor, plunging toward deep bass, the magisterial portamento of his onward-coursing baritone emits white-hot sparks and torrents of blue, investing his poison love songs with a tragic gravity and inflaming his celebrations of the honky-tonk ethos with the hellfire of abandon.”

George Jones (1931–2013) American musician, singer and songwriter

Nick Tosches The Devil in George Jones http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/devil-george-jones/page/0/1, 1994.

Love , Making love , Nature

“There is only one possible settlement – war! It has got to come … The difficulty is in the occasion and not the job itself, that is very easily done and I think nothing of the bogies and difficulties of settling South Africa afterwards. You will find a very different tone and temper when the center of unrest is dealt with.”

Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner (1854–1925) British statesman and colonial administrator

Milner as recorded by Percy FitzPatrick, cited in Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa, 2008, Martin Meredith, p. 374.

War , Thinking

“Music, for Gangubai, was an expression of faith and the note had to be searched and discovered each time a phrase was attempted. …In her case, a penetrating search for the note was more important than ornamentation. She could never achieve the sweetness, smoothness or the delicate artistry of tones that the Kirana was noted for, but with inherited talent, scrupulous cultivation and years of struggle what she achieved was unbelievable.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

Deepa Ganesh, in "Gangubai's search for perfection"

Music , Faith , Time , Search

“Along with the steady diet sitar, sarod, and tabla, several new instruments and players came to my attention. The first of these was Ustad Bismillah Khan, master of the sonorous double-reed instrument known as shehnai. This beautiful wind instrument, with finger holes and a bell-shaped opening at the bottom, sounded to me like a hybrid of soprano saxophone and oboe, and Bismillah Khan’s tone very much influenced what Coltrane and Terry Riley would do with the soprano sax. Primarily used at weddings, the shehnai had been rejected as a classical instrument until Bismillah Khan elevated it to a higher status among listeners. His unique fingertips and sublime breath control produced the necessary range of sounds for raga making shehnai one of the more popular instruments in North India.”

Bismillah Khan (1916–2006) Indian musician

Peter Lavezzoli in his bo [Lavezzoli, Peter, The Dawn of Indian Music in the West, http://books.google.com/books?id=OSZKCXtx-wEC&pg=PA375, 24 April 2006, Continuum, 978-0-8264-1815-9, 32]

Beauty , Making love , Wedding

“I had a farewell talk with Gokhale…. On the whole his tone both attracted and impressed me. He promises very confidently a good reception for our Reforms by the Congress…. But whether dealing with Parnell, Gokhale, or any other of the political breed, I have a habit of taking them to mean what they say until and unless I find out a trick. Parnell always so long as we were friends or allies, treated me perfectly honourably…. Mr. Gokhale is to stay in London until the end of the session, and I am in good hopes of finding him a help to me, and not a hindrance, in guiding the strong currents of democratic feeling that are running breast high in the House of Commons.”

Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866–1915) social and political leader during the Indian Independence Movement

Observations of w:John Morley on Minto-Morley Reforms in India for full fiscal and political autonomy within the empire in Gopala Krishna Gokhale, D. N. Bannerjea (1866-1915), 4 December 2013, Bangla Library http://web.archive.org/web/20131017195504/http://forum.banglalibrary.org/viewtopic.php?id=1398,

Confidence , Housing , Strong , Hope

“The effortless ease with which his tried vocal chords alternately contrasted the vibrant and tender shades is another special characteristics of Bhimsen’s rendition, capable of capturing the subtlest tones, at once showcasing the aesthetic majesty and grandeur of his exceptionally captivating quality of singing.”

Bhimsen Joshi (1922–2011) Indian vocalist

Critique

Singing

“The first thing that comes to my senses is your tone of your voice, remarkable one, warm, heady and involving.”

Simone Bittencourt de Oliveira (1949) Brazilian singer

Marília Pêra

Sense

“It is improper, to expressly pursue the Urlinie in performance and to single out its tones…for the purpose of communicating the Urlinie to the listener.”

Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935) Austrian music theorist

Rather, "for the performer, the Urlinie provides, first of all, a sense of direction. It serves a somewhat equivalent function to that which a road map serves for a mountain climber.
Das Meisterwerk I, p. 196. Translated by Kalib, vol. 2, p. 147. Quoted in Burkhart, Charles (1983). "Schenker's Theory of Levels and Musical Performance", Aspects of Schenkerian Theory, Beach David, ed. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Communication

“You are born into a generation that defines who you are more than you can imagine. Your generation wants to separate itself from the previous one and set a new tone for the world. In the process, it forms certain tastes, values, and ways of thinking that you as an individual internalize. As you get older, these generational values and ideas tend to close you off from other points of view, constraining your mind. Your task is to understand as deeply as possible this powerful influence on who you are and how you see the world. Knowing in depth the spirit of your generation and the times you live in, you will be better able to exploit the zeitgeist. You will be the one to anticipate and set the trends that your generation hungers for. You will free your mind from the mental constraints placed on you by your generation, and you will become more of the individual you imagine yourself to be, with all the power that freedom will bring you.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 17 : Seize the Historical Moment
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Hunger , Imagination , Time , Understanding

“What is true about heat and pain is also true about colour. The rock is no more red than it is hot or painful. It can only have a colour -- red, blue, yellow -- in the invisible life where the colour is felt, on the basis of 'feeling oneself' (se sentir soi-même). Life's feeling of itself and its feeling of colour is a pathos. Colour is not linked to a tonality through an external and contingent association that would vary with individuals. In the phenomenological substance of its flesh and being, colour is a sensation and subjectivity; it is this affective tonality and inner tone.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Michel Henry, Seeing the invisible: On Kandinsky, Continuum, 2009, p. 71
Books on Culture and Barbarism, Seeing the Invisible: On Kandinsky (1988)

Pain , Life , Feeling

“According to Confucian writings, wise individuals, wanting good government, looked first within, seeking precise words to express their hitherto unvoiced yearnings, "the tones given off by the heart."”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Once they were able to verbalize the intelligence of the heart they disciplined themselves. Order within the self led first to harmony within their own households, then the state, and finally the empire.
The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Seven, Right Power

Heart

“That splendid, head, in which everything is said that can be said; color, line, tone, expression; the slightly advanced head, with the soft, almost human eyes, I never enter my studio in the morning without my eye falling upon this creature and wishing it 'Good Morning.'”

Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831–1915) painter from the Northern Netherlands

note of H.W. Mesdag, published in the exhibition catalogue of Corporation Gallery of London, the Guildhall, in 1903; as cited in the catalogue of The American Art Galleries Madison Square South, New York, 3 March 1920 https://ia601600.us.archive.org/29/items/b1470642/b1470642.pdf

remark about the painting 'Ramskop' of Matthijs Maris, painted c. 1860 https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/26605, which Mesdag bought and hanged in his house for many years
after 1880

Color

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!”

John Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn

Stanza 2
Poems (1820), Ode on a Grecian Urn

Tree , Kiss , Youth , Lovers

“We must not believe those, who today, with philosophical bearing and deliberative tone, prophesy the fall of culture and accept the ignorabimus. For us there is no ignorabimus, and in my opinion none whatever in natural science. In opposition to the foolish ignorabimus our slogan shall be:
We must know — we will know!”

David Hilbert (1862–1943) German prominent mathematician

Wir müssen wissen — wir werden wissen!
Address to the Society of German Scientists and Physicians, in Königsberg (8 September 1930). The concluding statement was used as the epitaph on his tomb in Göttingen. Radio broadcast of the address http://math.sfsu.edu/smith/Documents/HilbertRadio/HilbertRadio.mp3, and transcription and English translation http://math.sfsu.edu/smith/Documents/HilbertRadio/HilbertRadio.pdf.

Science , Nature

“At some point, the Mod look had a short-lived Country Life moment, when the gorgeous mohair sheen of the three-button suit gave way to matte autumnal earth tones. Give it a name: fucking brown.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Source: I Wanna Be Yours (2020), p. 114.

Way , Life , Autumn , Country

“Life is like music, made of highs, mids and lows. Equalize the various tones so that you can make it wonderful.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La vita è come la musica, fatta di alti, medi e bassi. Equalizza i vari toni affinché tu riesca a renderla meravigliosa.
Source: prevale.net

Music , Life , Making love

“I like a chapter to have design of tone, as well as of form. A chapter should be a perfect cell in the whole book and should be almost able to stand alone. If this is done then the breaks we call chapters are not arbitrary but rather articulations which allow the free movement of the story.”

John Steinbeck book Journal of a Novel

March 7, 1951
Journal of a Novel (1969)

Perfection , Books

“Only a persuasive tone can kill two birds with one stone.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Bird

“I would say in compound sense of what little I know is it’s definitely darker in tone, and in terms of advice for taking kids of a certain age, it’s going to be prohibitive for certain people of a certain age because it is scary.”

Benedict Cumberbatch (1976) English actor and film producer

"Benedict Cumberbatch: ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is genuinely scary’" in Esquire Middle East https://www.esquireme.com/culture/interviews/benedict-cumberbatch-doctor-strange-in-the-multiverse-of-madness-is-genuinely-scary

People , Age , Sense

“One can have different attitudes to it, one can believe that the horsemen of the Apocalypse are already on their way and all hope is in Almighty God. However, one can still try to tone down this international situation.”

Dmitry Medvedev (1965) Russian Prime Minister and former president

"Putin crony invokes ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ amid Ukraine war" https://nypost.com/2022/06/03/dmitry-medvedev-invokes-apocalypse-amid-ukraine-war/, New York Post, 3 June 2022

God , Hope , Way

“Have a recognizable voice: find your authentic tone. Speak for those who cannot, for those who are afraid, for those who know how to be silenced. Be a beacon in the darkness for many people and beyond: always reach out and offer your heart where a true presence is needed.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Abbiate una voce riconoscibile: trovate il vostro tono autentico. Parlate per coloro che non possono farlo, per coloro che hanno paura, per coloro che sanno come essere messi a tacere. Siate un faro nell'oscurità per molte persone e oltre: tendete sempre la mano ed offrite il vostro cuore dove c'è bisogno di una presenza vera.
Source: prevale.net

Silence , People , Heart

Quotes about tone page 6

Quotes about tone
page 6