Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

William Congreve · The Mourning Bride (1697), act I, sc. i

If I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into a wife.

William Congreve · The Way of the World, IV, iv

A little disdain is not amiss; a little scorn is alluring.

William Congreve

’Tis better to be left, than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old.

William Congreve · The source reads: “But say what you will, ’tis better to be left, than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old.” · The Way of the World (1700), act II, sc. i

Mozart, the last chord of a centuries-old great European taste.

Friedrich Nietzsche · Beyond Good and Evil (1886), pt. IV, sec. 245

They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

Charlie Parker · Quoted in Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955)

I sing as the bird sings That lives in the boughs.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1786–1830), bk. II, ch. 11

“Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.”

“If I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into a wife.”

“A little disdain is not amiss; a little scorn is alluring.”

“’Tis better to be left, than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old.”

“Mozart, the last chord of a centuries-old great European taste.”

“They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.”

“I sing as the bird sings That lives in the boughs.”

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