120 Musical Genius Quotes

Following is our list of musical genius quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about musical talent.

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Famous Musical Genius Quotes

The great artist, whether he be musician, painter, or poet, is known for this absolute unexpectedness. — Loren Eiseley

Genius is one of the many forms of insanity. - Cesare Lombroso

Genius is one of the many forms of insanity. — Cesare Lombroso

Talent works, genius creates. — Robert Schumann

Talent works, genius creates. — Robert Alexander Schumann

Mozart is sweet sunshine. — Antonin Dvorak

Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius. — Henri Frederic Amiel

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents. — Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. - Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. — Ludwig van Beethoven

A genius is just a talented person who does his homework. - Thomas A. Edison

A genius is just a talented person who does his homework. — Thomas A. Edison

Give Mozart a fairy tale and he creates without effort an immortal masterpiece. — Camille Saint-Saens

A genius is a mentally ill person with an audience — Tim Minchin

A genius is the one most like himself. — Thelonious Monk

Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory. — Sir Thomas Beecham

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. — Lao Tzu

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. — Lao Tzu

Short Musical Genius Quotes

  • Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire. — Bern Williams
  • Genius is eternal patience. — Michelangelo Buonarroti
  • Genius creates, and taste preserves. — Alexander Pope
  • Being a musician is a noble profession. — Paul Weller
  • Music is the strongest form of magic. — Marilyn Manson
  • Talent hits a target no one else can hit, genius hits a target no one else can see. — Arthur Schopenhauer
  • One of the strongest characteristics of genius is the power of lighting its own fire. — John W. Foster
  • Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand. — Stevie Wonder
  • Music is the universal language of mankind. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  • Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one. — Ezra Pound

Musical Genius Image Quotes

Musical genius quote Life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black shows sadness, but as you go
Life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black shows sadness, but as you go through life's journey, remember that the black keys also makes music.

Artistic Genius Quotes

Almost all the noblest things that have been achieved in the world, have been achieved by poor men; poor scholars, poor professional men, poor artisans and artists, poor philosophers, poets, and men of genius. — Albert Pike

If we treat each other as if we are geniuses, poets and artists, we have a better chance of becoming that on stage. — Del Close

History shows us that the people who end up changing the world - the great political, social, scientific, technological, artistic, even sports revolutionaries - are always nuts, until they are right, and then they are geniuses. — John Eliot

Musical genius quote Behind every girl's favorite song there is an untold story.
Behind every girl's favorite song there is an untold story.

Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it. — Dee Hock

The life's story of great geniuses is a sad one, without much tangible reward, which does not inspire future generations to face a similar fate. Alas also, it stands to reason why so many talent will not come to sparkle on the artistic firmanent. — Joseph Haydn

A woman artist could be one of those intuitive geniuses [who] have kept their childlike spirit and have added to it breadth of vision and experience. — Alfred Stieglitz

Musical genius quote The earth has music for those who listen.
The earth has music for those who listen.

Only the brave should teach....Teaching is a vocation. It is as sacred as priesthood; as innate a desire, as inescapable as the genius which compels a great artist. If he has not the concern for humanity, the love of living creatures, the vision of the priest and the artist, he must not teach. — Pearl S. Buck

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected. — Henry David Thoreau

The artist must be a philosopher. Socrates the skilled sculptor, Jean-Jacques [Rousseau] the good musician, and the immortal Poussin, tracing on the canvas the sublime lessons of philosophy, are so many proofs that an artistic genius should have no other guide except the torch of reason. — Jacques-Louis David

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. — T. S. Eliot

Musical Talent Quotes

I have this ability to find this hidden talent in people that sometimes even they didn't know they had. — Berry Gordy

It's like a novelist writing far out things. If it makes a point and makes sense, then people like to read that. But if it's off in left field and goes over the edge, you lose it. The same with musical talent, I think. — Johnny Cash

Musical ability is not an inborn talent but an ability which can be developed. Any child who is properly trained can develop musical ability just as all children develop the ability to speak their mother tongue. The potential of every child is unlimited. — Shinichi Suzuki

Musical genius quote A genius always presents himself as a fool.
A genius always presents himself as a fool.

If 'Pygmalion' is not good enough for your friends with its own verbal music, their talent must be altogether extraordinary. — George Bernard Shaw

Ry Cooder for me is a master, a great master that has a wonderful feel for Cuban music. He's also paid tribute my talent a bit, even though I don't know half of what he knows. — Compay Segundo

I really like Alan Jackson, in Country Music. I think he's really very, very talented along with George Jones, and Merle Haggard, the same old favorites. — Tanya Tucker

Musical genius quote A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.
A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.

Composers today get a TV script on Friday and have to record on Tuesday. It's just dreadful to impose on gifted talent and expect decent music under these conditions. — Alex North

I've never heard anything Wynton [Marsalis] played sound like it meant anything at all. Wynton has no voice and no presence. His music sounds like a talented high-school trumpet player to me... he's jazzy the same way someone who drives a BMW is sporty. — Keith Jarrett

The first step - especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money - the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art. — Chuck Palahniuk

What I think we need to do is infuse everyday and every action with the kind of values we hope will be in the future, with kindness, with nurturing, with dreams, ambition, using your talents, not resorting to violence, other forms of conflict resolution, with humor, with poetry, with music. — Gloria Steinem

True Genius Quotes

I’m very proud of Seungri. I worked over a year for my album, but one day YG told Seungri to make an album and he made one in just 2 weeks. Ah, maybe 3 weeks. He’s a true genius. I’m jealous of his propulsion. — G-Dragon

Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind-that is, by your concept of yourself, and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true. — Neville Goddard

True genius, in strategy or anywhere, lies in self-control, self-mastery, presence of mind, fluidity of thought. — Robert Greene

Musical genius quote Art is how we decorate space; Music is how we decorate time.
Art is how we decorate space; Music is how we decorate time.

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him. — Jonathan Swift

Atheism ... that bugbear of women and fools ... is the very top and perfection of free-thinking. It is the grand arcanum to which a true genius naturally riseth, by a certain climax or gradation of thought, and without which he can never possess his soul in absolute liberty and repose. — George Berkeley

Does it not appear to you versatility is the true and rare characteristic of that rare thing called genius-versatility and playfulness? In my mind they are both essential. — Mary Russell Mitford

Musical genius quote An idiot with a plan can beat a genius without a plan.
An idiot with a plan can beat a genius without a plan.

True education makes for inequality; the inequality of individuality, the inequality of success, the glorious inequality of talent, of genius. — Felix Schelling

Who knows? He [Elon Musk] is a weird guy… He is a true genius and look at the world fundamentally differently than most people do. — Charles Hoskinson

Every true genius is bound to be naive. — Friedrich Schiller

True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information. — Winston Churchill

Creative Genius Quotes

Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them. — Ludwig von Mises

A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition. — Charles Caleb Colton

For me to say I wasn't a genius I'd just be lying to you and to myself - Kanye West

For me to say I wasn't a genius I'd just be lying to you and to myself — Kanye West

Musical genius quote Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Just like inspiration, genius can also come from some of the strangest places. — Cliff Lerner

If you gave your inner genius as much credence as your inner critic, you would be light years ahead of where you now stand. — Alan Cohen

I believe everybody in the world is born with genius-level talent. Apply yourself to whatever you’re genius at and you can do anything in the world. — Jay-Z

Musical genius quote The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has it limits.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has it limits.

We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or other people's models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open. — Shakti Gawain

The Bible makes it clear that every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God's creative genius is endless. — Eugene H. Peterson

Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity that you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach - how you look at things . . . Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing is not purely economical, then it is creative. — Osho

How full of the creative genius is the air in which these [snowflakes] are generated! I should hardly admire them more if real stars fell and lodged on my coat. Nature is full of genius. Full of the divinity. So that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand. — Henry David Thoreau

Talent And Genius Quotes

Mastery is not a function of genius or talent. It is a function of time and intense focus applied to a particular field of knowledge. — Robert Greene

... it is not the color of the skin that makes the man or the woman, but the principle formed in the soul. Brilliant wit will shine, come from whence it will; and genius and talent will not hide the brightness of its lustre. — Maria W. Stewart

Conceit spoils the finest genius?and the great charm of all power is modesty. — Louisa May Alcott

Musical genius quote Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climd a tree, it will live its whol
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climd a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

There is nothing more common than unsuccessful men with talent. — Joe Strummer

Religion itself is without genius. There is no religious genius and no one would be permitted to distinguish between the talented and the untalented in religion. — Max Stirner

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity. — Thomas Huxley

Musical genius quote A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.

All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talent. — John F. Kennedy

Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius. — William Blake

Talent finds its models, methods, and ends in society, exists for exhibition, and goes to the soul only for power to work. Genius is its own end, and draws its means and the style of its architecture from within. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better. — Carl Jung

People Writing About Musical Genius

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Read quotes by Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven
quotes on music

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Read quotes by Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu
quotes on balance, life and leadership

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Read quotes by Loren Eiseley

Loren Eiseley
quotes on nature, love and friendship

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Read quotes by Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann
quotes on life, music and love

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Read quotes by Henri Frederic Amiel

Henri Frederic Amiel
quotes on education, friendship and life

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Read quotes by Thomas A. Edison

Thomas A. Edison
quotes on success, innovation and medicine

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More Musical Genius Quotes

If a professional musician in a symphony orchestra is playing Beethoven. But this particular orchestra have played this particular chestnut so many times, they can play it in their sleep. Does the genius remain present in the music or not? — Robert Fripp

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

I don't believe in geniuses, I believe in hard work. — Michel Petrucciani

When I was a freshman in high school, my drama teacher, an incredible, inspirational genius, the guy who got me into acting, he encouraged me to get the lead in a musical. They didn't have any guys. — Casey Affleck

Music may not make you a genius, or rich, or even a better person. But it helps train you to think differently, to process different points of view — and most important, to take pleasure in listening. — Joanne Lipman

I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn't only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around. — Charles Mingus

Nothing great or enduring, especially in music, has ever sprung full-fledged and unprecedented from the brain of any master; the best he gives to the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius. — James Weldon Johnson

Art is a jealous mistress; and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Music is not a science any more than poetry is. It is a sublime instinct, like genius of all kinds. — Ouida

Skrillex. The man is a genius and paved a new way for music and it's very inspiring. — Christina Grimmie

Appalachia is still, for American musicians, a kind of fountain of youth we always go back to, the old home place to a group of artists who represent the quintessence of American independence, fortitude, genius, and madness. — Paul Burch

I was born in Memphis. There was music all around me, really deep and special music. I heard all these great masters at a young age.There was a great genius in my town, Phineas Newborn, who is one of the greatest pianists ever on the planet. He took me under his wings at about 9 and he put me on the right track. — Charles Lloyd

Bach is the supreme genius of music... This man, who knows everything and feels everything, cannot write one note, however unimportant it may appear, which is anything but transcendent. He has reached the heart of every noble thought, and has done it in the most perfect way. — Pablo Casals

We must have recourse to the rules of music when our genius and our ear seem to deny what we are seeking. — Jean-Philippe Rameau

The technical brilliance of Lang Lang and the musical genius to create a masterpiece on the spot. — Ian Brown

I adored Freddie Mercury and Queen had a hit called Radio Gaga. That's why I love the name. Freddie was unique - one of the biggest personalities in the whole of pop music. He was not only a singer but also a fantastic performer, a man of the theatre and someone who constantly transformed himself. In short: a genius. — Lady Gaga

Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it. — Otto Weininger

Hats off, gentlemen - a genius! If the mighty autocrat of the north knew what a dangerous enemy threatened him in Chopin's works in the simple tunes of his mazurkas, he would forbid this music. Chopin's works are canons buried in flowers. — Frederic Chopin

Some people think I'm a mythical genius, others think I'm a junkie madman. — Keith Richards

With few exceptions, every major pop singer in the US during her generation has been touched in some way by her genius. It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me. Lady Day is unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last twenty years. — Frank Sinatra

I truly miss the genius of the music of John Lennon, as I'm sure everybody does. — Peter Fonda

When I think of musical geniuses, I think of Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson and Prince. That's who comes to mind. — R. Kelly

Music looks very formidable to people outside of it and it looks like it's this realm of spooky genius. — Jon Brion

American mainstream is obsessed with black creative genius - be it music, walk, style - but at the same time puts a low priority on the black social misery which is the very context out of which that creativity flows. — Cornel West

I'm supposed to be this musical genius and everything, but I can't really work the car seat that well. — Kris Jenner

Lenny Breau is one of the true geniuses of the guitar. I suppose he is a musician's musician. His knowledge of the instrument and the music is so vast, and I think that's what knocks people out about him. But he's such a tasty player too. I think if Chopin had played guitar, he would have sounded like Lenny Breau. — Chet Atkins

As far as my creative urge is concerned, I do sit down and write my own music...I'll tell you a writer who I think is a genius: Ray Stevens. He comes up with some of the most fantastic novelty ideas. Dolly Parton also writes well. I like a lot of songs, a lot of writers. — Boudleaux Bryant

When I was younger I would have told you it was my genius, but now I don't believe that for a second. Music just comes out of you, it flows through, it's weird. If you think about it intellectually, how does someone come up with two hundred riffs over their life time? — Tracii Guns

David Shire and I have been happily married for 21 years! We have a 12-year-old son. David is a genius. He writes the most magnificent music and he is a devoted and loving husband and father. I am so blessed! — Didi

It's very unlikely you're a genius, but, if you're ready to work at it hard and you want to listen to music all the time and you want to learn about it and you want to be around the people who do it, you'll find your own way. — Jon Gordon

Stevie Wonder is a musical genius ! — Eddie Murphy

The genius of rock music is that it matched the cultural hysteria around it. — Don Delillo

I'm supposed to be a musical genius, but I can't work the car seat that well. — Kanye West

Genius is a word too often tossed around in musical circles. — Stanley Jordan

The art music of the West has developed through out its history by means of individual geniuses, and out of the soil supporting them; non-Western musicians were born, and grew like the grasses of the field. — Toru Takemitsu

I don't want anyone to fail, so if you can make money off music even though you can't sing or dance, that's genius. — Prince

Amadeus Mozart is to music something like Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was to literature. They are people who created something that nobody before them had. Absolute geniuses. You can recognize their harmonies among thousands. — Emmanuel Macron

In terms of music, each novel is different but I usually find my way into an era through the music. In this novel the New People, I listened to a lot of 90s hip-hop, which was just so genius. Also, all the musical references in the book from the Peoples Temple one and only album to Luther Vandross. — Danzy Senna

I think if you think of our lives as musicians, it's craftsmanship. We're not artists, we're more artisans. You know, I don't think we view ourselves as musical geniuses who can just make some sort of wonderfully beautiful record out of nothing. It's something that we work at. And if we keep working, hopefully we'll keep improving. — David Prowse

Being a mathematical genius doesn't do you any favors as far as having something to say in music. You see every style as equal, and you want complicated music to devour. — Chilly Gonzales

Bach in general was so good with the violin. He just finds the genius way around his music on the instrument. When you think about the fact that the instrument has changed significantly since he wrote for it and his music still really works, it's brilliant. He was definitely ahead of his time. There's something so satisfying about his music. It's beautifully organized and emotional at the same time. I find it highly exciting. — Hilary Hahn

Most of us do know we have no immortality. And when you've found a genius, someone who has already purchased his immortality in musical or literary terms, it's maddening. — Dan Simmons

A guy like Scott [Robinson] plays the whole history of music on every instrument you've ever heard of. He's just kind of an unparalleled genius. — Jon Gordon

There's a certain standard in classical music that allows the application of the term "genius," but you're treading on thin ice if you start applying it to rock & rollers. — Jimmy Page

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