110+ John Cage Quotes On Silence, Music And Experimental

John Cage was an American composer, music theorist, and artist. He is best known for his experimental and avant-garde music, as well as his pioneering work in indeterminacy and chance operations. He is also remembered for his influence on the development of minimalism, and for his use of found objects and everyday sounds in his compositions. Following is our collection on famous quotes by John Cage on silence, music, experimental.

Top 10 John Cage Quotes

1. There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.
2. I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
3. The world is no longer a romantic place; some of its people still are however, and therein lies the promise. Don't let the world win.
4. If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.
5. Good music can act as a guide to good living.
6. The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.
7. We need not destroy the past. It is gone.
8. There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.
9. Get yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself in.
10. I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry.

John Cage Short Quotes

• As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.
• The world is teeming; anything can happen.
• Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.
• Art is whatever you can get away with.
• Everyday is a beautiful day, Everything is pleasing
• A meal without mushrooms is like a day without rain.
• Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this.
• Each something is a celebration of the nothing that supports it.
• An error is simply a failure to adjust immediately from a preconception to an actuality.
• It's useless to play lullabies for those who cannot sleep.

John Cage Quotes About Silence

Try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. — John Cage

Not one sound fears the silence that extinguishes it. And no silence exists that is not pregnant with sound. — John Cage

There's no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound. — John Cage

I have nothing to say, and I am saying it. — John Cage

John Cage Quotes About Music

Which is more musical, a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school? Are the people inside the school musical and the ones outside unmusical? What if the ones inside can't hear very well, would that change my question? — John Cage

My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard — John Cage

There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things that don’t have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter. Don’t have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure. — John Cage

When I went to the analyst for a kind of preliminary meeting, he said, 'I'll be able to fix you so that you'll write much more music than you do now.' I said, 'Good heavens! I already write too much, it seems to me.' That promise of his put me off. — John Cage

If this word "music" is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound. — John Cage

The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences. — John Cage

Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school? — John Cage

Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. — John Cage

When you make music you are acting as a philosopher. You can either do that consciously or you can do it unconsciously, but you're doing it. — John Cage

I needed another basis for musical structure. This I found in sound's duration parameter, sound's only parameter which is present even when no sound is intended. — John Cage

John Cage Quotes About People

So somebody has talent? So what? Dime a dozen. And we're overpopulated. Actually we have more food than we have people and more art. We've gotten to the point of burning food. When will we begin to burn our art? — John Cage

Some people take music too seriously, and some don't take it seriously enough, others take it just right. — John Cage

College: two hundred people reading the same book. An obvious mistake. Two hundred people can read two hundred books. — John Cage

People paying attention to vibratory activity, not in reaction to a fixed ideal performance, but each time attentively to how it happens to be this time, not necessarily two times the same. A music that transports the listener to the moment where he is. — John Cage

People who aren't artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you work at your art you don't have time to be inspired. — John Cage

There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction. — John Cage

What I'm proposing, to myself and other people, is what I often call the tourist attitude - that you act as though you've never been there before. So that you're not supposed to know anything about it. If you really get down to brass tacks, we have never been anywhere before. — John Cage

John Cage Quotes About Ideas

When you start working, everybody is in your studio- the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas- all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you are lucky, even you leave. — John Cage

Guy Nearing told us it's a good idea when hunting mushrooms to have a pleasant goal, a waterfall for instance, and, having reached it, to return another way. When, however, we're obliged to go and come back by the same path, returning we notice mushrooms we hadn't noticed going out. — John Cage

No one can have an idea once he starts really listening. — John Cage

Ideas are one thing and what happens is another. — John Cage

John Cage Famous Quotes And Sayings

I never had a hat, never wore one, but recently was given a brown suede duck-hunting hat. The moment I put it on I realized I was starved for a hat. I kept it warm by putting it on my head. I made plans to wear it especially when I was going to do any thinking. Somewhere in Virginia, I lost my hat. — John Cage

Paper should be edible, nutritious. Inks used for printing or writing should have delicious flavors. Magazines or newspapers read at breakfast should be eaten for lunch. Instead of throwing one's mail in the waste-basket, it should be saved for the dinner guests. — John Cage

Theatre takes place all the time - wherever one is - and art simply facilitates persuading one this is the case. — John Cage

The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature, in her manner of operation. — John Cage

The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning. — John Cage

Our poetry now is the realization that we possess nothing. Anything therefore is a delight (since we do not posses it) and thus need not fear its loss. — John Cage

It is not futile to do what we do. We wake up with energy and we do something. And we make, of course, failures and we make mistakes, but we sometimes get glimpses of what we might do next. — John Cage

Food, one assumes, provides nourishment; but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction. — John Cage

Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want — John Cage

The emotions - love, mirth, the heroic, wonder, tranquility, fear, anger, sorrow, disgust - are in the audience. — John Cage

The responsibility of the artist consists in perfecting his work so that it may become attractively disinteresting. — John Cage

All God's religions ... have not been able to put mankind back together again. — John Cage

You can feel an emotion; just don't think that it's so important. — John Cage

To see, one must go beyond the imiagination and for that one must stand absolutely still as though at the center of a leap. — John Cage

We carry our homes within us which enables us to fly. — John Cage

Everything we do is music." (Classical Composer)(From: 4'33") — John Cage

If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience. — John Cage

One need not fear for the future of music. — John Cage

Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes. — John Cage

In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall. — John Cage

The function of Art is to imitate Nature in her manner of operation. Our understanding of her manner of operation&Rdquo; changes according to advances in the sciences. — John Cage

A 'mistake' is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is. — John Cage

We are simple-minded enough to think that if we were saying something we would use words. We are rather doing something. The meaning of what we do is determined by each one who sees and hears it. — John Cage

Every something is an echo of nothing — John Cage

If there are questions then, of course, there are answers, but the final answer makes the questions seem absurd. — John Cage

It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else. — John Cage

As McLuhan says, everything happens at once. — John Cage

My favourite music is the music I haven't yet heard. I don't hear the music I write: I write in order to hear the music I haven't yet heard. — John Cage

A mind that is interested in changing...is interested precisely in the things that are at extremes. I'm certainly like that. Unless we go to extremes, we won't get anywhere. — John Cage

My favorite piece [piece of music] is the one we hear all the time if we are quiet. — John Cage

I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, 'You'll come to a wall you won't be able to get through.' So I said, 'I'll beat my head against that wall.' — John Cage

I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing. — John Cage

When we separate music from life we get is art. — John Cage

When I hear what we call music, it seems to me that someone is talking. And talking about his feelings, or about his ideas of relationships. But when I hear traffic, the sound of traffic - here on Sixth Avenue, for instance - I don’t have the feeling that anyone is talking. I have the feeling that sound is acting. And I love the activity of sound... I don’t need sound to talk to me. — John Cage

One day when I was studying with Schoenberg, he pointed out the eraser on his pencil and said, 'This end is more important than the other.' After twenty years I learned to write directly in ink. — John Cage

I like being moved. I don't like being pushed. — John Cage

After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, ‘In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony.’ I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always encounter an obstacle, that it would be as though I came to a wall through which I could not pass. I said, ‘In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall.’ — John Cage

One shouldn't go to the woods looking for something, but rather to see what is there. — John Cage

Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical. — John Cage

Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of it's own accord. — John Cage

The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason. — John Cage

...we make our lives by what we love. — John Cage

The Indians long ago knew that music was going on permanently and that hearing it was like looking out a window at a landscape which didn't stop when one turned away. — John Cage

Everything I see is something I haven't memorized. — John Cage

The world, the real is not an object. It is a process. — John Cage

The white paintings came first; my silent piece came later. — John Cage

There will always be critics eager to fashion opinions for the lazy and incapable. — John Cage

Where does beauty begin? Where does it end? Where it ends is where the artist begins. — John Cage

The act of listening is in fact an act of composing. — John Cage

Discord occasions a momentary distress to the ear, which remains unsatisfied, and even uneasy, until it hears something better. I am convinced...that provided the ear be at length made amends, there are few dissonances too strong for it. Disharmony, to paraphrase Bergson's statement about disorder, is simply a harmony to which many are unaccustomed. — John Cage

Art is sort of an experimental station in which one tries out living. — John Cage

A finished work is exactly that, requires resurrection. — John Cage

Everything you do is music, and everywhere is the best seat. — John Cage

The attitude I take is that everyday life is more interesting than forms of celebration, when we become aware of it. That when is when our intentions go down to zero. Then suddenly you notice that the world is magical. — John Cage

I am trying to check my habits of seeing, to counter them for the sake of greater freshness. I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing. — John Cage

I believe the use of noise to make music will increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard. — John Cage

What right do I have to be in the woods, if the woods are not in me. — John Cage

Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness. — John Cage

Now that things are so simple, there's so much to do. — John Cage

Music is a means of rapid transportation. — John Cage

With just one musician, you can really do an unlimited number of things on the inside of the piano, if you have at your disposal an exploded keyboard. — John Cage

Nothing more than nothing can be said. — John Cage

I remember loving sound before I ever took a music lesson. And so we make our lives by what we love. — John Cage

Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music. — John Cage

Out of the work comes the work. — John Cage

Whether I make them or not, there are always sounds to be heard and all of them are excellent. — John Cage

In the dark, all cats are black. — John Cage

I want to change my way of seeing, NOT my way of feeling. I was perfectly happy about my feelings. — John Cage

All I know about method is that when I am not working I sometimes think I know something, but when I am working, it is quite clear I know nothing. — John Cage

We are involved in a life that passes understanding and our highest business is our daily life. — John Cage

To accept whatever comes, regardless of the consequences, is to be unafraid. — John Cage

We're breaking all of the rules, even our own rules, and how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities. — John Cage

Life Lessons by John Cage

1. John Cage's work teaches us to be open to experimentation and to explore the possibilities of sound. He encourages us to be creative and to think outside the box when it comes to music.
2. Cage's work also emphasizes the importance of collaboration and of working with others to create something unique.
3. Finally, Cage's work encourages us to be mindful of our environment and to appreciate the beauty of the sounds around us.