Praise is the recognized form of making noise in the presence of superiors . . . it tends to become music . . . ascends like incense . . . it lifts the heart.

-- Walter Burkert

(in Divine Sparks: Collected Wisdom of the Heart,

edited by Karen Speerstra)

A lot depends on my commitment to listening and my intention to stay coherent with this note. It is only when my life is tuned to my note that I can lay life's mysterious and holy music without tainting it with my own discordance, my own bitterness, resentment, agendas, and fears.

-- Rachel Naomi Remen

(in Divine Sparks: Collected Wisdom of the Heart,

edited by Karen Speerstra)

The Latin word cantare is generally translated as "to sing." Its original meaning, however, was "to work magic."

-Joachim Berendt

(in Divine Sparks: Collected Wisdom of the Heart,

edited by Karen Speerstra)

No one knows what music is. It is performed, listened to, composed, and talked about; but its essential reality is as little understood as that of its first cousin, electricity. We know that it detaches the understanding, enabling thoughts to turn inward upon themselves and clarify; we know that it releases the human spirit into some solitude of meditation where the creative process can freely act; we know that it can soothe pain, relieve anxiety, comfort distress, exhilarate health, confirm courage, inspire clear and bold thinking, ennoble the will, refine taste, uplift the heart, stimulate intellect, and do many another interesting and beautiful thing. And yet, when all is said and done, no one knows what music is. Perhaps the explanation is that music is the very stuff of creation itself.

-- Lucien Price

(in Music Lovers Quotations,

edited by Helen Exley)

Speech is man's most confused and egocentric expression, his most orderly and magnanimous utterance is music.

-- Ned Rorem

(in Notations: Quotations on Music,

edited by Sallye Leventhal)