Some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.

-- Alexander Pope

(in Music:  A Book of Quotations,
edited by Herb Galewitz)

Music hath caught a higher pace than any virtue I know.  It is the arch-reformer; it hastens the sun to its setting; it invites him to its rising; it is the sweetest reproach, a measured satire.

-- Henry David Thoreau
(in Music:  A Book of Quotations,
edited by Herb Galewitz)

Whether the angels play only Bach in praising God I am not quite sure; I am sure, however, that en famille they play Mozart.

-- Karl Barth

(in The Music-Lover's Birthday Book,
edited by Alden Rockwell Murphy)

Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars . . . Beethoven embraced the universe with the power of his spirit . . . I do not climb so high.  A long time ago I decided that my universe will be the soul and heart of man.

-- Frederic Chopin

(in The Music-Lover's Birthday Book,
edited by Alden Rockwell Murphy)

Do you know that our soul is composed of harmony?

-- Leonardo da Vinci
(in The Music-Lover's Birthday Book,
edited by Alden Rockwell Murphy)