90 Harp Quotes
Following is our list of harp quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about harp music.
Quick Jump To
Famous Harp Quotes
Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune. — Igor Stravinsky
Nature is an aeolian harp, a musical instrument whose tones are the re-echo of higher strings within us. — Novalis
And the wind plays on those great sonorous harps, the shrouds and masts of ships. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The harmonica is the most voice-like instrument, you can make it wail, feel happy, or cry. It's like singing the blues without words. — Charlie Musselwhite
The heart is like a musical instrument of many strings, all the chords of which require putting in harmony. — Saadi Shirazi
To me, the harmonica is like a voice. — Charlie Musselwhite
I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window. — Steven Wright
The ocean is a mighty harmonist. — William Wordsworth
I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute; but I know how to raise a small and obscure city to glory and greatness...whereto all kindreds of the earth will pilgrim. — Themistocles
Play the flute of felicity! You, yourself, are the melody. — Rumi
The sound of a harpsichord - two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm. — Thomas Beecham
The Steinway piano is the most harmonious implement for musical intention. It completes what is beautiful and artistic. — Yefim Bronfman
The violin - that most human of all instruments. — Louisa May Alcott
The oboe's a horn made of wood. I'd play you a tune if I could, But the reeds are a pain, And the fingering's insane. It's the ill wind that no one blows good. — Ogden Nash
The flute of the infinite is played without ceasing, and its sound is love. — Kabir
Short Harp Quotes
- I've played everything but a harp. — Hattie McDaniel
- My pen is my harp and my lyre; my library is my garden and my orchard. — Judah Halevi
- Me and my harp was a love affair from way back. — Little Walter
- Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings. — John Muir
- The willow tree plays the water like a harp. — Ramon Gomez de la Serna
- Your body is the harp of the soul. — Kahlil Gibran
- I am producing sounds that people are not used to hearing from the harp. — Joanna Newsom
- For Ryan's Daughter I used a total of eight harps, something that was, at least, weird. — Maurice Jarre
- I started playing harp about fourteen years ago. — Joanna Newsom
- I can't play my songs on the smaller harp. I have a Celtic harp. I can't do the key changes. — Joanna Newsom
Playing Harp Quotes
The actor should not play a part. Like the Aeolian harps that used to be hung in the trees to be played only by the breeze, the actor should be an instrument played upon by the character he depicts. — Alla Nazimova
Life is like the harp string, if it is strung too tight it won't play, if it is too loose it hangs, the tension that produces the beautiful sound lies in the middle. — Buddha
Kindness is the music of Good Will to men, and on this harp the smallest fingers may play heaven's sweetest tunes on earth. — Elihu Burritt
The living thing is not the clay molded by the potter, nor the harp played upon by the musician. It is the clay modeling itself. — E.S. Russell
The perfection of conversation is not to play a regular sonata, but, like the AEolian harp, to await the inspiration of the passing breeze. — Edmund Burke
I grew up with a beautiful gold harp sitting in our living room. My older sister played it. — Diane Paulus
I recorded harp first or singing first. I recorded it all together. Part of the reason is that I don't know how to play the songs without also singing. I forget how they progress. I don't think that any of them are verse, chorus, verse, and so on. They are not simple. — Joanna Newsom
(As a boy) I was listening to Sonny Boy Williamson's (I) records and I would close my eyes and I could visualize myself playing the harp. — Junior Wells
We must get away from the traditional idea that the saints in Heaven have one eternal holiday; that they have nothing to occupy them save playing a harp and incessantly singing. — Herbert Lockyer
People become house builders through building houses, harp players through playing the harp. We grow to be just by doing things which are just. — Aristotle
Harp Music Quotes
I can pass days Stretch'd in the shade of those old cedar trees, Watching the sunshine like a blessing fall,-- The breeze like music wandering o'er the boughs, Each tree a natural harp,--each different leaf A different note, blent in one vast thanksgiving. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Those who have virtue always in their mouths, and neglect it in practice, are like a harp, which emits a sound pleasing to others, while itself is insensible of the music. — Diogenes
At Bloomington, Indiana, I was invited to listen to music written in quarter tones for four harps and voices. I had to go out to be sick. — Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
I didn't really know a lot of the history when I was younger. I didn't realize that the harp is coded in such a specific way in musical circles. It's kind of this society instrument because of its history as a young woman's parlor instrument. — Joanna Newsom
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight. — Alfred Lord Tennyson
The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled. So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er; And hearts that once beat high for praise Now feel that pulse no more. — Charles Lamb
Your body is the harp of your soul and it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds. — Kahlil Gibran
The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man's body. — Francis Bacon
Two touch the string, The harp is dumb. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
The harp is an insipid instrument--no good for dancing, feasting, or marching, only for sitting primly in a parlor or on a cloud. — Mason Cooley
People Writing About Harp
| Name | Quotes | Likes |
|---|---|---|
 Joanna Newsom |
51 | 179 |
 Igor Stravinsky |
97 | 1172 |
 Novalis |
102 | 642 |
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
699 | 7457 |
 Saadi Shirazi |
186 | 4715 |
 Steven Wright |
543 | 9203 |
More Harp Quotes
My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony. — Fernando Pessoa
I don't harp on the negative because if you do, then there's no progression. There's no forward movement. You got to always look on the bright side of things, and we are in control. Like, you have control over the choices you make. — Taraji P. Henson
I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble Education; laborious indeed at first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect, and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming. — John Milton
I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands. — Zora Neale Hurston
They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves. — Calvin Coolidge
We all share in the same cosmic rhythm... For all natural laws are like the rhythm of the strings of the harp. — Ernesto Cardenal
Each string of a wind harp responds with a different note to the same breeze. What activity makes you personally resonate most strongly, most deeply? — David Steindl-Rast
The home was a school. Farm and cabin households, though bookless save for the Family Bible and The Sacred Harp, taught the girls to spin, weave, quilt, cook, sew, and mind their manners; the boys to wield gun, ax, hammer and saw, to ride, plow, sow and reap, and to be men. Nobody need ever be bored. Amusement did not have to be bought. — Richard M. Weaver
The whole world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men who look young, act young, and everlastingly harp on the fact they are young, but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution which would be excessive in their grandfathers, are the curses of the world. — Robertson Davies
Hope works in these ways: it looks for the good in people instead of harping on the worst; it discovers what can be done instead of grumbling about what cannot; it regards problems, large or small, as opportunities; it pushes ahead when it would be easy to quit; it lights the candle instead of cursing the darkness. — Tony Robbins
In winter, when the dismal rain Comes down in slanting lines, And Wind, that grand old harper, smote His thunder-harp of pines. — Alexander Smith
We tend to harp on little things, or worry about something, when, really, it's just not that important. If you have a roof over your head, and you're healthy, and your family is healthy, that's all that matters. Don't let the little things get you down. — Asher Roth
Soft as Memnon's harp at morning, To the inward ear devout, Touched by light, with heavenly warning Your transporting chords ring out. Every leaf in every nook, Every wave in every brook, Chanting with a solemn voice Minds us of our better choice. — John Keble
Each class preaches the importance of those virtues it need not exercise. The rich harp on the value of thrift, the idle grow eloquent over the dignity of labor. — Oscar Wilde
Whatever Juice this sky will pour this gaping parched old throat will drain; What time the Harper harps I'll dance: 'tis He, not I, who shall complain. Meal may be scarce and cakes be burnt, yet I weep not nor even scold: The sun is food enough for me, 't is large, and has not yet grown cold. — Ridgely Torrence
I am a believer in angels, though not the picture-book kind with wings and harps. Such angelic accoutrements seem as nonsensical to me as devils sporting horns and carrying pitchforks. To me, angel wings are merely symbolic of their role as divine messengers. — Richard Paul Evans
Time has laid his hand Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it, But as a harper lays his open palm Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
He liked to think that Heaven was what each person wanted it to be. He could see no future in lying around on a fluffy white cloud and listening to somebody playing on a harp, a picture of Heaven he had seen numerous times in one form or another. Even if it was that way, his personal preference would have run more to the fiddle. — Elmer Kelton
Now we know everything about golf equipment. A player doesn't have to know diddly about golf clubs, because we know what a golf club can do and how it can fit to you. I hate to harp on my era because people don't like that, but 30 years back was so different. I didn't have maxed-out clubs. The clubs now are amazing. — Nick Faldo
There are vast realms of consciousness still undreamed of -vast ranges of experience, like humming of unseen harps, we know nothing of, within us. — D. H. Lawrence
And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps, Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the soul of each, and God of all? — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The language I have learnt these forty years, My native English, now I must forgo; And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cased up Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony. — William Shakespeare
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of harp quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about harp to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of harp quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
Embed HTML Link
Copy and paste this HTML code in your webpage