Folk music is the original melody of man; it is the musical mirror of the world. — Friedrich Nietzsche
All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song. — Louis Armstrong
If it was never new and it never gets old, then it's a folk song — Oscar Isaac
To dwellers in a wood, almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. — Thomas Hardy
Character is the backbone of our human culture. Music is the flowering of character. — Confucius
Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race. — William Kingdon Clifford
The wind is us-- it gathers and remembers all our voices, then sends them talking and telling through the leaves and the fields. — Truman Capote
Music is a gut thing. You're working in a medium which is more in touch with the primal than the modern. A gig is a ritual. There's a congregation. — Siobhan Fahey
Who has smelled the woodsmoke at twilight, who has seen the campfire burning, who is quick to read the noises of the night? — Rudyard Kipling
Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music. — George Gershwin
I hold the most archaic values on earth ... the fertility of the soul, the magic of the animals, the power-vision in solitude.... the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. — Gary Snyder
Let us listen to the voices of our Forebears ... In the smoky cabin, souls that wish us well are murmuring. — Leopold Sedar Senghor
You have to open your mind. I like the ability to express myself in a deep way. It's the closest music to our humanity - it's like a folk music that rises up out of a culture. — Sonny Terry
It's a folk singer's job to comfort disturbed people and to disturb comfortable people — Woody Guthrie
Fish and fowl, warm sun and shady trees, the field mice in the wheat, under the cool light of the moon. — Garth Nix
Short Folk Quotes
The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with faith to fight for it — Aneurin Bevan
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be. — Abraham Lincoln
Kurds are like fire, if approached kindly they will warm you, if approached badly they will burn you — Leyla Zana
The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end. — Harriet Beecher Stowe
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. — Abraham Lincoln
If songs were lines in a conversation, the situation would be fine . . . — Nick Drake
We were like psychedelic folk combined with Sonic Youth's noise. — Scott Putesky
We were like psychedelic folk combined with Sonic Youth's noise. — Daisy Berkowitz
Why are black folks singing Amazing Grace which is a song about a white slaver's conversion? — Dick Gregory
Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us. — Stephen Colbert
Folk Image Quotes
Some folks are wise and some are otherwise. — Tobias Smollett
Too many young folk have addiction to superficial things and not enough conviction for substantial things like justice, truth and love.
Folk Music Quotes
Once over there [Balkans], I felt extremely patriotic. Here are these people, from 18-year-olds to military veterans, enduring real duress for the cause of peace. I don't ever want to play for a regular audience again, only military folks who are starving for music. — Sheryl Crow
Folk melodies are the embodiment of an artistic perfection of the highest order; in fact, they are models of the way in which a musical idea can be expressed with utmost perfection in terms of brevity of form and simplicity of means. — Bela Bartok
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
What I'm doing is basically the same as Bob Dylan did with folk songs and Woody Guthrie songs, the same as folk music's always done. I'm not going to sing about ploughing, but I'll write a song that sounds like it should be about ploughing. — Justin Townes Earle
Rock ’n roll is really swing with a modern name. It began on the levees and plantations, took in folk songs, and features blues and rhythm. It's the rhythm that gets to the kids – they're starved of music they can dance to, after all those years of crooners. — Alan Freed
My idea of heaven is a place where the Tyne meets the Delta, where folk music meets the blues. — Mark Knopfler
Everyone has their own sound, and if you're heard enough, folks will come to recognize it. Style however, is a different thing. Try to express your own ideas. It's much more difficult to do, but the rewards are there if you're good enough to pull it off. — Chet Atkins
Jazz is the folk music of the machine age. — Paul Whiteman
The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago. — Louis Armstrong
Folk Songs Quotes
The chief contribution made by white men of the Americas to the folk songs of the world ——- the cowboy songs of Texas and the West ——- are rhythmed to the walk, the trot, and the gallop of horses. — J. Frank Dobie
But in my imagination this whole thing developed and I started mixing up old folk songs with the Beatles beat and taking them down to Greenwich Village and playing them for the people there. — Roger McGuinn
I always knew Gordon Lightfoot was a really great songwriter, but his stuff even sounds better and better all the time. It's just so really good to me. It's just like that's what should be in a dictionary, you know, next to a really good contempory folk song, is a Gordon Lightfoot song. — John Prine
A folk song is what's wrong and how to fix it or it could be
who's hungry and where their mouth is or
who's out of work and where the job is or
who's broke and where the money is or
who's carrying a gun and where the peace is. — Woody Guthrie
I think folk music helps reinforce your sense of history. An old song makes you think of times gone by. — Pete Seeger
You've got to go down the road you naturally go down, and for me it was pop, folk country, just feel-good music. I suppose most of my songs are very up-tempo. — Shane Filan
It seems to me that the American popular song, growing out of American folk music, is the basis of the American musical theater… it is quite legitimate to use the form of the popular song and gradually fill it out with new musical content. — Kurt Weill
I have no reason to sit home and write songs all day without going out and playing for the folks. And I have no reason to go play for the folks unless I'm writing new songs so they can sort of feed off one another. And I just try to do the best I can. — Guy Clark
People were saying that Southern folk song was dead, that the land that had produced American jazz, the blues, the spirituals, the mountain ballads and the work songs had gone sterile. — Alan Lomax
I grew up around music. My father was a professional musician. We used to have a trailer house that we travelled in. I've always loved music. Started out loving to sing to the standards and songs of the early 50s, then that interest shifted to rock and roll, Motown, folk. — Timothy B. Schmit
Old Folk Quotes
Racism isn't born, folks, it's taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list. — Denis Leary
As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks, who used to love them. — Henry Ward Beecher
I was sixty-six years old. I still had to make a living. I looked at my social security check of 105 dollars and decided to use that to try to franchise my chicken recipe. Folks had always liked my chicken. — Colonel Sanders
Today, folks, should be all about love. Unless you're old. — Stephen Colbert
We old folks have to find our cushions and pillows in our tankards. Strong beer is the milk of the old. — Martin Luther
When you get real old, honey, you realize there are certain things that just don't matter anymore. You lay it all on the table. There's a saying, 'Only little children and old folks tell the truth.' — Sarah Louise Delany
Being unprepared makes me nervous. I'm old-fashioned show folk. — John C. Reilly
The Alps are a simple folk, living on a diet of old shoes. And the Lord Alps those who alp themselves. — Groucho Marx
It was around that time, early 60s. There were like three kindred spirits in New Jersey. I had two friends who played folk music, old-time music and bluegrass and we started a little band called the Garret Mountain Boys. — David Grisman
We've put more effort into helping folks reach old age than into helping them enjoy it. — Frank Howard Clark
Folk Art Quotes
In this perilous world, if a black boy wanted to live a halfway normal life and die a natural death he had to learn early the art of how to get along with white folks. — Benjamin E. Mays
An intelligent observation of the facts of human existence will reveal to shallow-minded folk who sneer at the use of coincidence in the arts of fiction and drama that life itself is little more than a series of coincidences. — Rafael Sabatini
One of the reasons I love using LEGO bricks is because it makes the art very relatable and accessible; folks can connect with the art almost on a different level because they have played with it or their kids have played with it. — Nathan Sawaya
I never got a pass mark in math... Just imagine - mathematicians now use my prints to illustrate their books. Funny me consorting with all these learned folks, as though I were their long lost brother. I guess they are unaware of the fact that I am ignorant about the whole thing. — M. C. Escher
Everything that has ever been called folk art has always reflected domination. — Theodor Adorno
I'm trying to inspire as many people as I can. I want the viewer to enjoy the art and I want the whole family to have something to react to. I hope that folks go home and do a bit of doodling and creating on their own. — Nathan Sawaya
Art teaches us to see into things. Folk art and kitsch allow us to see outward from within things. — Walter Benjamin
Folk parapsychology, an art and science designed to enable people to make effective use of their psychic talents — Isaac Bonewits
A game may be as integral to a culture, as true an object of human aesthetic appreciation, as admirable a product of creativity as a folk art or a style of music; and, as such, it is quite as worthy of study. — Michael Dummett
The book the Ziff folks sent me as an example of their art was 'Late Night VRML 2.0 with Java,' 700 pages + CD-ROM, published February 1997. I was personally acquainted with more movie stars than people who might conceivably have wanted to buy this book or any book like it. — Philip Greenspun
Common Folk Quotes
That proves you are unusual,' returned the Scarecrow; 'and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed. — L. Frank Baum
When the leaders speak of peace
The common folk know
That war is coming
When the leaders curse war
The mobilization order is already written out. Every day, to earn my daily bread
I go to the market where lies are bought
Hopefully
I take up my place among the sellers.
— Bertolt Brecht
Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious. — Charles Baudelaire
Folk music isn't owned by anybody. It is owned by everybody, like the national parks, the postal system, and the school system. It's our common property. There is nobody's name on it. Nobody can make money on it. It's not copywritten. — Utah Phillips
I would say there's a lot of similarity between folk and punk. It's written for the common man. — Greg Graffin
The guard rails on a highway may restrict some folks from driving the way they want, but those rules mostly end up saving the lives of those other drivers who understand that living in a society means behaving in a commonly beneficial way. — Steven Weber
The most popular man under a democracy is not the most democratic man, but the most despotic man. The common folk delight in the exactions of such a man. They like him to boss them. Their natural gait is the goose step. — H. L. Mencken
Common folk didn't have last names in the 8th and 9th centuries. — Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
When the leaders speak of peace, the common folk know war is coming. — Bertolt Brecht
The people people have for friends
Your common sense appall
But the people people marry
Are the queerest folk of all. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Poor Folk Quotes
If you ask for good schools, you aren't likely to get them. If you ask for jobs or economic investment, you won't get that either. But what we have learned, is that the one thing that poor folks of color can ask for and get are Police & Prisons. — Michelle Alexander
Lobbyists in Washington are making six figure salaries selling our government out to the corporate interests and we just sit and smile as if nothing is happening while the poor folks are getting poorer and their pharmaceutical bills rise. — Hal Holbrook
They were written on cheap blue notebooks bought by poor women. I'm interested in folk tales in the way that medicine and magic in women's stories are all kind of combined. — Alice Hoffman
Mass incarceration has become normalized in the United States. Poor folks of color are shuttled from decrepit, underfunded schools to brand new, high tech prisons and then relegated to a permanent undercaste - stigmatized as undeserving of any moral care or concern. — Michelle Alexander
The working-class folks and the poor, and those normal people living their lives out in the world without the glitter and the fanfare. There is a lot to learn from them. — Mark Ruffalo
Too often, systems of oppression turn those who are the targets of the oppression against one another. It's happened in the USA between white working class and poor folks on the one hand, and people of color on the other. — Tim Tebow
My folks were English. They were too poor to be British. I still have a bit of British in me. In fact, my blood type is solid marmalade. — Bob Hope
The poor folk gladly came to me, for I did them no unkindness, but helped them as much as I could. — Joan of Arc
As sore places meet most rubs, proud folks meet most affronts. — Benjamin Franklin
The poor folks hate the rich folks, and the rich folks hate the poor folks. All of my folks hate all of your folks, it's American as apple pie. — Tom Lehrer
Folklore Quotes
A man from Iowa or Illinois will say 'I'm from the Middle West'..a Georgian or a Mississipian may admit to being merely a Southerner...but no Texan, given the opportunity, ever said otherwise than 'I'm from Texas'. — J. Frank Dobie
If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine. — Diana Wynne Jones
Expedition EVEREST adds a new dimension to our storytelling in Disney's Animal Kingdom. It's a thrilling adventure themed to the folklore of the mysterious yeti. — Joe Rohde
When fairy tales are written in the west, they're known as folklore. In the east, fairy tales are called religions. — Paul Henderson
What I find interesting about folklore is the dialogue it gives us with storytellers from centuries past. — Terri Windling
I have a better internal and intuitive understanding of folklore and myth than science and technology, so in that way fantasy is easier. — Sarah Zettel
I developed some unique software to public it on the web that I call the Folklore Project. — Andy Hertzfeld
My academic identity is that of a folklorist, and for many years I have taught only folklore courses. — Alan Dundes
I have a great advantage over many of my colleagues inasmuch as my students bring with them to class their own personal knowledge of national, regional, religious, ethnic, occupational, and family folklore traditions. — Alan Dundes
When I was younger, I was in love with everything about the British Isles, from British folklore to Celtic music. That was always where my passions were as a young girl, and so I studied folklore as a college student in England and Ireland. — Terri Windling
When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk. — Barack Obama
When you've worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity...you do not slam it shut behind you...you reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed. — Michelle Obama
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. — H. L. Mencken
Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay small acts of kindness and love. — Peter Jackson
The church of Jesus needs to wake up from the exile of passivity and embrace liminality and adventure or continue to remain a religious ghetto for culturally co-opted, fearful, middle-class folk. — Alan Hirsch
People try to look for deep meanings in my work. I want to say, 'They're just cartoons, folks. You laugh or you don't.' Gee, I sound shallow. But I don't react to current events or other stimuli. I don't read or watch TV to get ideas. My work is basically sitting down at the drawing table and getting silly. — Gary Larson
I'll tell you how I'd like to be remembered: As a black man who won the heavyweight title - Who has humorous and who never looked down on those who looked up to him - A man who stood for freedom, justice and equality - And I wouldn't even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was. — Muhammad Ali
I would like to see every single soldier on every single side, just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down at the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I aint a gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns. — Woody Guthrie
Too many young folk have addiction to superficial things and not enough conviction for substantial things like justice, truth and love. — Cornel West
We don't need a melting pot in this country, folks. We need a salad bowl. In a salad bowl, you put in the different things. You want the vegetables — the lettuce, the cucumbers, the onions, the green peppers — to maintain their identity. You appreciate differences. — Jane Elliott
There's several ways of saying what's on your mind. And in states and counties where it ain't too healthy to talk too loud, speak your mind, or even vote like you want to, folks have found other ways of getting the word around. One of the mainest ways is by singing. — Woody Guthrie
I don't respect killers, I respect O.G. knowledge,
Codes of the streets got new rules, but no guidance.
Lessons, detrimental to a young disciple;
Folks, take care of your brothers, niggas do as I do.
Keep your enemies close, where they can see you.
It's not your enemy who get you, it's always your own people. — Nas
I am gay on the outside, especially among my own folk (I count Poles my own); but inside something gnaws at me; some presentiment, anxiety, dreams - or sleeplessness - melancholy, indifference - desire for life, and the next instant, desire for death; some kind of sweet peace, some kind of numbness, absent-mindedness. — Frederic Chopin
I know folks all have a tizzy about it, but I like a little bourbon of an evening. It helps me sleep. I don't much care what they say about it. — Lillian Gordy Carter
The folks who know the truth aren't talking.... The ones who don't have a clue, you can't shut them up! — Tom Waits
Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! For prayer is a great deterrent. — Leonard Ravenhill
When the topic of food comes up in conversation with family, friends or casual acquaintances, it’s fascinating to hear the litany of rationalizations, knee-jerk defense mechanisms, self-limiting belief statements and general confusion or ignorance from otherwise intelligent folks when it comes to eating healthfully. But then again, Conventional Wisdom has often led even the best and brightest minds in nutritional science astray. — Mark Sisson
Unfortunately folks we gotta help the innocents and face the demons that have taken over. We gotta face it. Most of your top government people are child rapists, murdering scum. I've told you everything else, you've seen it come true. It's a pedophile army. — Alex Jones
Now, I've never flown in space; but the folks who have say that on landing day, you know, you've just spent maybe a week and a half, sometimes two weeks in orbit and you're used to the things happening slowly in space. — Duane G. Carey
Debt is so ingrained into our culture that most Americans can't even envision a car without a payment ... a house without a mortgage ... a student without a loan ... and credit without a card. We've been sold debt with such repetition and with such fervor that most folks can't conceive of what it would be like to have NO payments. — Dave Ramsey
I realized up there that our planet is not infinite. It's fragile. That may not be obvious to a lot of folks, and it's tough that people are fighting each other here on Earth instead of trying to get together and live on this planet. We look pretty vulnerable in the darkness of space. — Alan Shepard
We are sitting on top a warehouse of TNT right now and George Soros and Obama are running around with flame-throwers shooting them in the air. Any minute it's gonna set off folks and all hell is gonna break loose. — Alex Jones
Maybe some folks are alcoholics and others are just voluntary drunks. Maybe some folks drink due to body chemistry and others due to their lazy characters. Maybe some have drinking problems, while others have problems enough to drink. — George Jones
Most rightists wanted an autocracy without asterisk – that is, a mystical unity of monarch and folk – and they rejected anything more than a consultative Duma, but the autocrat himself had created the Duma. — Stephen Kotkin
If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other folks then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding. — Zora Neale Hurston
Folks can't carry around money in their pocket. They've got to go to an ATM machine, and they've got to pay a few dollars to get their own dollars out of the machine. Who ever thought you'd pay cash to get cash? That's where we've gotten to. — Bill Janklow
Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk. — Bertolt Brecht
There's one sad truth in life I've found While journeying east and west - The only folks we really wound Are those we love the best. We flatter those we scarcely know, We please the fleeting guest, And deal full many a thoughtless blow To those who love us best. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox
How well you slept last night and when you felt sleepy to go to bed, and how you felt on waking are MAINLY controlled by how early and how much sunlight you viewed before 10am in the preceding 2-3 days. Other factors matter but that’s the biggie folks. Non-negotiable biology. — Andrew Huberman
For black folks, the Confederate flag represents the same thing that the Nazi flag represents to the Jews. There is absolutely no difference when we look at it. Now, white folks try to explain it away like, 'Oh, it's OK.' But when you're black, it is not OK. It represents oppression and murder. — Ken Page
In Conclusion
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