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
“Let us rather submit with firmness to His almighty will, in the full conviction that it will prove for our good, as he does nothing without a cause.”
— 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.

60 verified voices · 12 shown here, a fresh sample each day

“Which power raises man the higher? Love or Music? It is a great question. It seems to me that one might say this: "Love cannot give an idea of music, but music can give an idea of love--why separate them?" They are the twin wings of the soul.”
— Hector Berlioz, The Life of Hector Berlioz as Written by Himself in His Letters and Memoirs (trans. Katharine F. Boult, 1903) (1864)
“This gave the death-blow to my promise; music claimed me for her own.”
— Hector Berlioz, The Life of Hector Berlioz as Written by Himself in His Letters and Memoirs (trans. Katharine F. Boult, 1903) (1822)
“The lover is moved by the beloved object as the senses are by sensible objects; and they unite and become one and the same thing. The work is the first thing born of this union; if the thing loved is base the lover becomes base.”
— Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Richter translation)
“And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.”
— Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (1923)
“He who loveth flyeth, runneth, and is glad; he is free and not hindered.”
— Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (trans. William Benham)
“The plot of the photoplay is usually based on the fundamental emotions which are common to all and which are understood by everybody. Love and hate, gratitude and envy, hope and fear, pity and jealousy, repentance and sinfulness, and all the similar crude emotions have been sufficient for the construction of most scenarios.”
— Hugo Münsterberg, The Photoplay: A Psychological Study (1916)
“that best portion of a good man's life; / His little, nameless, unremembered acts / Of kindness and of love.”
— William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads (1798) (1798)
“Love me as I love you, and then we shall never cease loving each other.”
— Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vol. 1 (trans. Lady Grace Wallace, 1865) (1777)
“Did my Beloved only touch me with His lips, I too, like a flute, would burst out into melody.”
— Jalalu'd-Din Rumi, Masnavi i Ma'navi (trans. E. H. Whinfield), as printed in F. Hadland Davis, The Persian Mystics
“No lover ever seeks union with his beloved, But his beloved is also seeking union with him.”
— Jalalu'd-Din Rumi, Masnavi i Ma'navi (trans. E. H. Whinfield), as printed in F. Hadland Davis, The Persian Mystics
“my art shall be entirely devoted to the benefit of the poor. Oh, blissful moment!--how happy do I esteem myself that I can expedite it and bring it to pass!”
— Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 (trans. Lady Grace Wallace, 1866), Vol. 1 (1800)
“With thee, my love, hell itself were heaven. With thee a prison would be a rose-garden.”
— Jalalu'd-Din Rumi, Masnavi i Ma'navi (trans. E. H. Whinfield), as printed in F. Hadland Davis, The Persian Mystics
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.