“The sorrows of the mind Be banish'd from the place! Religion never was design'd To make our pleasures less.”
— Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707)
“Come, we that love the Lord, And let our joys be known; Join in a song with sweet accord, And thus surround the throne.”
— Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707)
“Thus the reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in contemplating it they find themselves learning or inferring, and saying perhaps, 'Ah, that is he.'”
— Aristotle, Poetics (trans. S. H. Butcher)
“Hardly any teaching can mean more for our community than the teaching of beauty where it reaches the masses. The moral impulse and the desire for knowledge are, after all, deeply implanted in the American crowd, but the longing for beauty is rudimentary; and yet it means harmony, unity, true satisfaction, and happiness in life.”
— Hugo Münsterberg, The Photoplay: A Psychological Study (1916)
“O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.”
— Anonymous (Hebrew Psalmist), The Book of Psalms (King James Version) (1611)
“Yesterday I played the whole of Eugene Oniegin, from beginning to end. The author was the sole listener. I am half ashamed of what I am going to confide to you in secret: the listener was moved to tears, and paid the composer a thousand compliments.”
— Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, The Life and Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, ed. Modeste Tchaikovsky (trans. Rosa Newmarch, 1906) (1878)
“Don't forget my wish to write an opera; I envy every person who writes one; I could almost weep from vexation when I hear or see an aria.”
— Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vol. 1 (trans. Lady Grace Wallace, 1865) (1778)
“Let us cherish and love old age; for it is full of pleasure if one knows how to use it.”
— Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius
“And universal art, by uniting the most different people in one common feeling, by destroying separation, will educate people to union, will show them, not by reason but by life itself, the joy of universal union reaching beyond the bounds set by life.”
— Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? (trans. Aylmer Maude) (1897)
“Such tricks hath strong imagination, That if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy.”
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“I had so long ached to try my hand at a Requiem that I flung myself into it body and soul. My head seemed bursting with the ferment of ideas, and I actually had to invent a sort of musical short-hand to get on fast enough.”
— Hector Berlioz, The Life of Hector Berlioz as Written by Himself in His Letters and Memoirs (trans. Katharine F. Boult, 1903) (1837)
“What light! What sunshine! What a delight to sit at the open window with a bunch of violets before me, and to drink in the fresh air! I am full of sensations. I feel so well, and yet so sad--I could weep. Yet I know not why. Only music can express these feelings.”
— Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, The Life and Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, ed. Modeste Tchaikovsky (trans. Rosa Newmarch, 1906) (1881)
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.