170 Classical Quotes

Following is our list of classical quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about old classic.

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Famous Classical Quotes

Classicism becomes avant-garde when everyone else is doing their utmost to develop new stylistic forms. And I think it's healthy to return to classical forms. — Michael Haneke

I’ve learned what ‘classical’ means. It means something that sings and dances through sheer joy of existence. — Gustav Holst

Classical music is far from boring - it has all the blood, energy, the sinister dark side, rhythm that rock music has, and all the refined, subtle sensuality that one can ask for — Yuja Wang

I've always been heavily influenced by classical music, mostly by baroque music. — Yngwie Malmsteen

What is classical music if not the epitome of sensuality, passion, and understated erotica that popular music, even with all of its energy and life, cannot even begin to touch? — Lara St. John

Classical ballet will never die. - Ninette de Valois

Classical ballet will never die. — Ninette de Valois

You always have to be diplomatic with music, with classical, with whatever you do. — David Garrett

Has it struck you that the music which is regarded as the most sublime in western civilization, which is the music of Bach, is called baroque? — Pierre Schaeffer

I had to listen to the classical music because it calms me down, calms my nerves down. — Novak Djokovic

Ballet.something pure in this crazy world — Misty Copeland

Western culture is what gave us Mozart, and Da Vinci, and Wagner, and Beethoven. — Milo Yiannopoulos

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music. — Nina Simone

Jazz will be the classical music of the future. — Dizzy Gillespie

Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depends on simplicity. — Plato

Many fail to realize this great recording industry was built by so-called jazz artists. And at the other end of the spectrum, a base in European classical music as well. — Ahmad Jamal

Short Classical Quotes

  • Quiet people have the loudest minds. — Stephen Hawking
  • Whoever called snooker "chess with balls" was rude, but right. — Clive James
  • You must have your heart on fire and your brain on ice. — Vladimir Lenin
  • Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. — Clark Gable
  • I like to wear classic silhouettes and add a punch to it. — Serena Williams
  • Music expresses that which cannot be put into words. — Victor Hugo
  • I desire the things that will destroy me in the end. — Sylvia Plath
  • Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world. — Samuel Johnson
  • A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. — Italo Calvino
  • A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. — Leopold Stokowski

Classical Image Quotes

Classical quote A classic is a book that has never been finished saying what it has to say.
A classic is a book that has never been finished saying what it has to say.
Sex and religion are closer to each other than either might prefer. - Thomas More quote

Sex and religion are closer to each other than either might prefer. — Thomas More

Classic Quotes

It is the cult of self that is killing the United States. This cult has within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance ; a need for constant stimulation; a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation; and the incapacity for remorse or guilt. — Chris Hedges

What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age. — Sylvia Plath

At the age when Bengali youth almost inevitably writes poetry, I was listening to European classical music. — Satyajit Ray

Fool!" cried the hunchback. "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. — William Goldman

After the war, once the bop revolution had taken hold, there were all kinds of young musicians, talented young musicians, who were ready for this fusion of classical and jazz. — Gunther Schuller

There was a long history of speculation that in quantum gravity, unlike Einstein's classical theory, it might be possible for the topology of spacetime to change. — Edward Witten

(A unified) 'Europe' is the result of plans. It is, in fact, a classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure: only the scale of the final damage done is in doubt. — Margaret Thatcher

My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that? — Bob Hope

Perhaps some day I'll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow. — Sylvia Plath

And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter— they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. — Sylvia Plath

Old Classic Quotes

I forever felt that I've fallen right between the crack of way too young for the first generation of classic rock 'n' roll and too old to be brand-new. It's hard. — Paul Westerberg

I am a classical music lover - not necessarily the contemporary stuff, but the old stuff. — Eberhard Weber

I see friends who are in different genres of music, and they say they're so burnt playing the same stuff every night. That's why you see a country act wanting to go out and play an old classic rock song. But what cracks me up is that they all want to be Jimmy Buffett. I can't figure that out. — Kid Rock

There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends. — Sylvia Plath

For me it always comes down to what is a good song and I'm very old fashioned in the way that I like to make songs that have something classic about them whether you can play them with an orchestra or an electro synthesizer or an acoustic guitar. — Marc Almond

When I'm 40, too old to be a rock star, I plan to go back to college to study classical music. — Chris Martin

My Dad died during the flu epidemic in 1918 when I was 4 years old. He left a lot of classical recordings behind that I began listening to at an early age, so he must have been a music lover. — Tom Glazer

Now, I know you expected me to say that, well, I just kick back in the rocking chair, fished a little bit, listened to Willie Nelson tapes and watched old baseball games on the Classic Sports network. And, tell you the truth, I have done that for maybe about five total minutes. — Dan Rather

The classic relationship with grass that early hippies had was that it's better shared with friends. You can't really get high with a bad attitude. Kindness and sweetness exhilarates your stone. Stolen grass doesn't get you as high. The old hippie ethic really counts — Stephen Gaskin

There has been 32 isms since the advent of cubism, yet after all there are essentially the same two old strings, the Romantic and the Classical. We've just be confused by the storm. Science and psychology have played a great part to say nothing of sex. — Mark Tobey

Inspirational Classical Quotes

To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To you, respect. — Oren Arnold

Dance every performance as if it were your last. — Erik Bruhn

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time. — Laura Ingalls Wilder

I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer. — Richard Strauss

That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them. — Dorothy Parker

The mile has a classic symmetry....It's a play in four acts. — John Landy

Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. — Franz Kafka

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. — Mario Puzo

Dancing is poetry with arms and legs. — Charles Baudelaire

Great classic music that I've been turned on to has not only inspired and influenced me, but it has had an effect on my songwriting. — Scott Weiland

Classical Music Quotes

One of the problems that we face through the media attention that these artists receive is that there has been an awful lot of talk about opera and classical music being elite and being for an elitist group. — Lesley Garrett

To sing is to pray twice. — Saint Augustine

Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

With the Stray Cats at least, we really took the music somewhere else. First, we wrote our own songs. That's a real weak point in modern classics if you do rockabilly or blues. — Brian Setzer

I still the love classic period, but also the baroque period, and even 17th-Century music such as the music of Monteverdi. He's one of the greatest opera composers. He was the one who really started the opera. — Cecilia Bartoli

I did not care for Wagner. My tastes are more classical. Der Fuhrer had no musical taste and liked Wagner because of the bombastic Teutonic glories. — Hans Frank

What is best in music is not to be found in the notes. - Gustav Mahler

What is best in music is not to be found in the notes. — Gustav Mahler

I love classic rock, rock and roll, that's the top notch. I love soul - bluesy music as well. — Haley Reinhart

Yeah, I always listen to both classic and newer folk-influenced music. Singer-songwriter, alternative music. I also listen to more experimental dance music. — Brad Delson

I have a very varied taste in music. Everything from rap to classical to Latino to Rat Pack to jazz. — Jasper Fforde

Classical Musicians Quotes

And what classical music does best and must always do more, is to show this kind of transformation of moods, to show a very wide psychological voyage. And I think that's something that we as classical musicians have underestimated. — Michael Tilson Thomas

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. — Charlie Parker

Wagner’s music is better than it sounds. — Mark Twain

I've worked with some great orchestras and amazing classical musicians, but I don't like the conceptualization of classical music as an elitist form of art. — Serj Tankian

Don't be a perfectionist... leave that to the classical musicians. — Dave Brubeck

I would like for people to not be stuck by the rules of what is expected of a classical musician. If you really want to do something different, don't be afraid to do so. Think of music itself and not the rules or expectations of people. — Charlie Albright

Classical music gradually lost popularity because it is too complicated: you need twenty-five or thirty skilled musicians just to hum it properly. So people began to develop regular music. — Dave Barry

I'd been trained as a classical musician, but also as a pop musician. My teacher made sure that everything was available. — Jeanine Tesori

Classical musicians go to the conservatories, rock´n roll musicians go to the garages. — Frank Zappa

They tell me Wagner's music is better than it sounds. — Edgar Wilson Nye

Classical Dance Quotes

Even the ears must dance. — Natalia Makarova

Classic Van Halen made people want to dance and f**k. Modern Van Halen makes you want to drink milk and drive foreign cars. — David Lee Roth

Indian classical dance is sustained by a profound philosophy. Form seeks to merge with the formless, motions seek to become a part of the motionless, and the dancing individual seeks to become one with the eternal dance of the cosmos. — Nita Ambani

Every teacher will tell you that you cannot dance classical technique with perfection, there is no such thing, there is no way. So you have to adapt the technique to your abilities or to your deficiencies. Learn to cheat! — Jiri Kylian

And then you have the classical ballerinas, they're like sopranos. Applied to the dance. — Ninette de Valois

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

I enjoy the freedom of modern dance as well as the constraints of classical dance. — Deborah Bull

You cannot dance physically certain things. But look at tango dancers or flamenco or Japanese classical theater. You can, if you're smart enough and you collaborate with the right choreographers, you could really dance your age. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

In liberal democracy and anxious anarchy, the traditional classic dance, compact of aristocratic authority and absolute freedom in a necessity of order, has never been so promising as an independent expression as it is today. — Lincoln Kirstein

The vocabulary and manner of classical ballet express a high order of discipline and restraint, a sense of harmony with forces larger and more lasting than the individual. — Marcia Siegel

Classical Art Quotes

A Classical style... is the syllogism of art, the only legitimate process from one world to another. Classicism is not the manner of any fixed age or of any fixed country; it is a constant state of the artistic mind. It is a temper of security and satisfaction and patience. — James Joyce

What is important is that our optical awareness rids itself of classical notions of beauty and opens itself more and more to the beauty of the instant and of these surprising points of view that appear for a brief moment and never return; those are what make photography an art. — Raoul Hausmann

But really, it was reading that led me to writing. And in particular, reading the American classics like Twain who taught me at an early age that ordinary lives of ordinary people can be made into high art. — Russell Banks

Much as I cared for Joseph Kennedy, he was a classic example of that person in the arts with lots of brains and drive but little taste or talent. — Gloria Swanson

I went to the Performing Arts School and studied classical ballet. That attitude is something that's put into your head. You are never thin enough. — Carmen Electra

Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there. — Bruce Lee

If classical music is the state of the art, then the arts are in a sad state. — Frank Zappa

A Haydn symphony had a meaning for the social group that listened to it. A Mahler symphony had a meaning for the man who composed it. Here is the difference between the classical and romantic attitudes to art. — Anthony Burgess

Romanticism was more than merely an alternative to a sterile classicism; romanticism made possible, especially in art, a great expansion of the human consciousness. — Edward Abbey

The objective of the Classical Art of Riding is to train the horse not only to be brilliant in the movements and the exercises of the High School but also to be quiet, supple and obedient and by his smooth movements to make riding a true pleasure — Alois Podhajsky

Classical Composers Quotes

Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules... Mathematicians are more like classical composers. — Brian Greene

I had great inspiration from a Japanese composer named Toru Takemitsu. He wrote over 90 film scores and a lot of concert music, a lot of classical music, and he gave me a lot of inspiration, as well as composers from other countries. — Howard Shore

I had a big background in listening to classical music and I started trying to compose, like I was playing the guitar but I heard an orchestra in my head. — John Fahey

I loved Hendrix. I mean, really, really loved him. As if he were one of the great classical composers. And he was. That's how I saw him. — Warren Zevon

For me personally - because I do it myself - the scoring of a picture is fun. I edit the picture and when I've finished I go into my room and I have many many records - jazz, classical and popular music. And I have this all at my disposal. I don't have to get a composer. — Woody Allen

I am a ham. I've no business being rock 'n' roll. I've said it over and over again that I'm a classical composer, dishevelling my personality by dabbling in rock 'n' roll. — John Cale

You think about, like, [20th-century classical composers] Alban Berg, Schoenberg, and Webern sitting around in some living room in Vienna and being like, "We are the end of music. We are the end of this tradition. Music is done." — David Longstreth

I grew up mostly in Champaign, Illinois. My dad was at the University of East Illinois, so I was always around the music. One of my dad's buddies was the avant-garde composer John Cage, so I picked up on that weird classical and eclectic music. — Stuart Hamm

Although in society in general, the idea of an Irish composer of 'classical music', or whatever you want to call it, is still a strange item, generally speaking. Even in the arts, among our fellow creative artists in other disciplines, you still feel slightly out of it. — John Kinsella

I grew up on Bach and Beethoven and now I'm listening to more modern composers who I can't even name. But since I'm constantly doing music, it's difficult to have that quality time to listen to music and do classical stuff. That's the only reason I'm thinking of going on. — A. R. Rahman

Classical Education Quotes

I doubt whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried out without corporal punishment. — George Orwell

Classical education has deformed everything, and has imposed upon us as geniuses men of correct, facile talent, who follow the beaten track. — Emile Zola

Pyramid-building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth, if the education of our statesmen on the principles of the classical economics stands in the way of anything better. — John Maynard Keynes

Fate of empires depends on the education of youth — Aristotle

It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I owe the little formal education I got to my drama teacher, Mr. Pickett, who got us to read Shakespeare, Moliere, and other classics. — Dennis Quaid

Anyone who has passed though the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape. — William Hazlitt

Teaching is the last refuge of feeble minds with a classical education. — Aldous Huxley

If income was directly proportional to technical proficiency and education, classical and jazz musicians would be some of the most affluent people in the world. — Robert Emerson Coleman

The accumulation of facts, even if interesting in themselves, should not constitute the main part of education; these facts, whether they be of classical learning or knick-knacks of history, will be of little use unless the mind has been trained to see them in proper perspective. — Arthur Lynch

Classical Guitar Quotes

It was my 16th birthday - my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song, and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do - write songs and sing them to people. — Stevie Nicks

I'm not a really good classical guitarist by any means, but what I learned from this is a way of working very slowly on solo pieces and I enjoyed working on these pieces of John's. They were not written for solo guitar but a lot of them were easy to adapt. — Marc Ribot

The classical guitar has a dynamic to it unlike a regular acoustic guitar or an electric guitar. You know, there's times when you should play and there's times when you gotta hold back. It's an extremely dynamic instrument. — Steve Vai

I listened to classical guitar and Spanish guitar, as well as jazz guitar players, rock and roll and blues. All of it. I did the same thing with my voice. — Boz Scaggs

I read and write classical piano and percussion, also guitar. — Suzi Quatro

From the classical guitar right through to the furthest electrical experiments and everything in-between, it's amazing what the guitar can actually do. I mean, when one thinks about sounds. — Jimmy Page

I'm thinking about learning a few new things - like taking classical guitar lessons - and I'd like to bring what I learn into hard rock. — Mick Mars

I am Classic Rock Revisited. I revisit it every waking moment of my life because it has the spirit and the attitude and the fire and the middle finger. I am Rosa Parks with a Gibson guitar. — Ted Nugent

I play piano and trumpet. I studied classical guitar. — Mike Figgis

There was a period when I'd just come out of college where I'd been playing classical guitar and I suddenly realised that it wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. — Andy Summers

People Writing About Classical

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Michael Haneke

Michael Haneke
quotes on leadership, education and culture

71 147
Read quotes by Gustav Holst

Gustav Holst

10 312
Read quotes by Yngwie Malmsteen

Yngwie Malmsteen

9 77
Read quotes by Lara St. John

Lara St. John
quotes on life, love and faith

24 124
Read quotes by Ninette de Valois

Ninette de Valois
quotes on love, education and friendship

28 256
Read quotes by Pierre Schaeffer

Pierre Schaeffer
quotes on education, art and love

22 132

More Classical Quotes

Jimmy Page is an excellent producer. Led Zeppelin I and II are classics. As a player he's very good in the studio, but I've never seen him play well live. He's sloppy. He plays like he's got a broken hand and he's two years old. If you put out a good album and play like a two year old, what's the purpose? — Eddie Van Halen

I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited. — Sylvia Plath

The unconscious is not just evil by nature, it is also the source of the highest good: not only dark but also light, not only bestial, semihuman, and demonic but superhuman, spiritual, and, in the classical sense of the word, "divine." — Carl Jung

I want every fan of Rand to hear [Polaha] say the classic Galt phrase: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. — John Galt

Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted. — Sylvia Plath

Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me... aren't you? — Dustin Hoffman

When I was your age — about, ooh, a thousand years ago — I loved a good bedtime story. The Three Little Sontarans. The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes. Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday, eh? All the classics. — Mark Gatiss

The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt. — F. F. Bruce

What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful. — Scott Westerfeld

The classic view of the correct price of a common stock is that it is derived from the value of all the future earnings. These earnings are uncertain and subject to unknowable factors. — Edward O. Thorp

So what's the adaptive advantage of schizophrenia? It has to do with a classic truism — this business that sometimes you have a genetic trait which in the full-blown version is a disaster, but the partial version is good news. — Robert M. Sapolsky

The British secret service was staffed at one point almost entirely by alcoholic homosexuals working for the KGB — Clive James

Adam Levine and I remade the Rolling Stones' classic Wild Horses, and it is right up my alley, that whole style. It has a style of its own but still stays very true to the classic arrangement, and I love it. — Alicia Keys

If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. — Emily Bronte

Kermit was the Everyman, the original Tom Hanks, but I have a special place in my heart for Fozzie Bear. The classic borderline hacky entertainer. — Jason Segel

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