Voices of the Muses

The world's great painters, poets, composers and thinkers wrote constantly about how to live — in letters, journals and the works themselves. This is that wisdom, gathered and verified: a companion for your day, and a doorway into the arts they made.

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Today's voice
“My heart beats with joy at the thought of the happy day when I shall once more see and embrace you.”
— Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vol. 1 (trans. Lady Grace Wallace, 1865) (1778)
Composer, 1756–1791
What this is, and how to use it

Not a quote site. A daily practice, and a door.

1

Find a voice for your day

Filter by what you're living through — courage, solace, gratitude, stillness — and hear how someone who lived by their art faced the same thing. Every quote is real: traced to the letter, page or verse it was actually written in, never internet folklore.

2

Don't just read — sit with it

Take one voice, not twenty. Read it slowly, twice. Ask what it would change about your afternoon if it were true. That single unhurried minute is the smallest version of every practice ImagineArts teaches.

3

Follow the voice to its art

Each voice is a door: Van Gogh's letters lead to really looking, Seneca leads to the examined life, the Psalms lead to awe. When a voice grabs you, start free and learn the practice behind it.

13 verified voices in Sacred arts · 12 shown here, a fresh sample each day

“Love is the astrolabe of God's mysteries. A lover may hanker after this love or that love, But at the last he is drawn to the KING of Love. However much we describe and explain Love, When we fall in love we are ashamed of our words. Explanation by the tongue makes most things clear, But Love unexplained is better.”
— Jalalu'd-Din Rumi, Masnavi i Ma'navi (trans. E. H. Whinfield), as printed in F. Hadland Davis, The Persian Mystics
Sacred arts Love & friendship Stillness & rest Truth & honesty
“Let all my songs gather together their diverse strains into a single current and flow to a sea of silence in one salutation to thee.”
— Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1912)
Sacred arts Gratitude Stillness & rest Transcendence
“a good, peaceable man converteth all things into good. He who dwelleth in peace is suspicious of none,”
— Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (trans. William Benham)
Sacred arts Hope Stillness & rest Community
“When the heart is hard and parched up, come upon me with a shower of mercy. When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song. When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.”
— Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1912)
Sacred arts Solace & consolation Hope Stillness & rest
“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
— Anonymous (Hebrew Psalmist), The Book of Psalms (King James Version) (1611)
Sacred arts Solace & consolation Stillness & rest
“First keep thyself in peace, and then shalt thou be able to be a peacemaker towards others. A peaceable man doth more good than a well-learned.”
— Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (trans. William Benham)
Sacred arts Meaning & purpose Stillness & rest Community
“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
— Anonymous (Hebrew Psalmist), The Book of Psalms (King James Version) (1611)
Sacred arts Stillness & rest Transcendence
“O master poet, I have sat down at thy feet. Only let me make my life simple and straight, like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music.”
— Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1912)
Sacred arts Craft & discipline Meaning & purpose Stillness & rest
“Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.”
— Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions of Saint Augustine (trans. E. B. Pusey)
Sacred arts Meaning & purpose Stillness & rest Transcendence
“Blessed are the eyes which are closed to things without, but are fixed upon things within.”
— Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (trans. William Benham)
Sacred arts Attention & seeing Stillness & rest Truth & honesty
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.”
— Anonymous (Hebrew Psalmist), The Book of Psalms (King James Version) (1611)
Sacred arts Solace & consolation Nature Stillness & rest
“for love was born of God and cannot rest save in God above all created things.”
— Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (trans. William Benham)
Sacred arts Love & friendship Stillness & rest Transcendence
The Salon library

This is today’s sample of twelve. The whole collection is in the Salon.

Salon members read all 746 English quotes and the Afrikaans collection too, with every filter, the plain-words notes from A Year with the Muses, the quotes they save, and a private journal for the lines that stay with them.

Join the SalonAlready a member? Open the library →

Every quote in this collection was verified against its original public-domain source — the letter, journal, poem or treatise it truly comes from. No internet folklore, no misattributions. Start free to bring these voices into your daily practice.