The 19 Best Quotes About Sound and Music

It’s hard to put into words the impact of the perfect lyric, melody or infectious beat that moves you in unexpected ways. Authors, composers and artists have tried – and here we’ve rounded up our favorite quotes that help to begin forming structure around such an unspoken universal force. Which are most meaningful to you? If you had to sum up the power of music and sound in one sentence, what would you say?

1. “Where words fail, music speaks.” – Hans Christian Andersen

2. “Music begins where the possibilities of language end.” – Jean Sibelius

3. “Half of the storytelling ability is sound.” – Joe Herrington, Principal Media Designer for Disney parks in the Imagineering department

4. “It’s hard to put into words the impact of the perfect lyric, melody or contagious beat that moves you in an unexpected way. Authors, composers and artists have tried – and here we’ve rounded up our favorite quotes that help to begin forming structure around such an unspoken universal force. Which are most meaningful to you? If you had to sum up the power of music and sound in one sentence, what would you say?”A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.” – Leopold Stokowski

5. “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent” – Victor Hugo

6. “Get rid of the shitty sound. Life’s too short.” – Hans Zimmer

7. “Music . . .  can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.” – Leonard Bernstein

8. “When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” – Malala Yousafzai

9. “Music is the social act of communication among people, a gesture of friendship, the strongest there is.” – Malcom Arnold

10. “Music is organized sound.” – Edgard Varese

11. “Funny how a melody sounds like a memory.” – Eric Church

12. “If you talk to any director, they’ll say music is fifty percent of the movie.” – Hans Zimmer

13. “That’s the evergreen nature of a great song. They can be resurrected. They can be covered. They can find new relevance due to changing circumstances in history.” – John Legend

14. “There’s a very basic human, non-verbal aspect to our need to make music and use it as part of our human expression. It doesn’t have to do with body movements, it doesn’t have to do with articulation of a language, but with something spiritual.” – John Williams

15. “Music is the universal language of mankind.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

16. “Music is what feelings sound like.” – Author Unknown

17. “Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.” – Confucius

18. “A song will outlive all sermons in the memory.” – Henry Giles

19. “They should be covering their ears!” – Hans Zimmer