Best century & song Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“There is an old song which asserts 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted...and get it without toil, without sweat, without tears. Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain.”

Source: Starship Troopers

“Without a song, each day would be a century.”

Would Be Song Music Century Each Day

Author:Mahalia Jackson

“Gershwin's melodic gift was phenomenal. His songs contain the essence of New York in the 1920s and have deservedly become classics of their kind, part of the 20th-century folk-song tradition in the sense that they are popular music which has been spread by oral tradition (for many must have sung a Gershwin song without having any idea who wrote it).”

Kind Has Beens Ideas Song Century New York Tradition Essence Folks Spread 20th Century Phenomenal Popular Music Gershwin Folk Songs Oral Tradition

Author:George Gershwin

“For centuries poets, some poets, have tried to give a voice to the animals, and readers, some readers, have felt empathy and sorrow. If animals did have voices, and they could speak with the tongues of angels-at the very least with the tongues of angels-they would be unable to save themselves from us. What good would language do? Their mysterious otherness has not saved them, nor have their beautiful songs and coats and skins and shells and eyes.”

Source: Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals

“I dream of songs. I dream they fall down through the centuries, from my distant ancestors, and come to me. I dream of lullabies and sea shanties and keening cries and rhythms and stories and backbeats.”

Stories Dream Song Fall Music Sea Century Cry Singing Rhythm Ancestor Falling Down Lullaby

Book:Composed: A Memoir

Source: Composed: A Memoir

“My father urged Alan [Lomax] not to repeat the mistakes of the European folklorists who, a century ago, had collected these peasant songs and then arranged them for part choir and accompanied them on piano, and then told the young people of their country, "Don't change a note, this is our sacred heritage." Father said, whether it's a fiddle tune or a gospel song, learn it right off the record from the people who grew up with it. Don't just learn it from a piece of paper.”

People Said Country Young Song Father Mistake Records Pieces Century Grew Paper Grew Up Sacred Notes Piano Repeats Tunes Heritage Peasants Don't Change Choir Fiddle Gospel Songs

Author:Pete Seeger

“I still prefer to hear [Bob] Dylan acoustic, some of his electric songs are absolutely great. Electric music is the vernacular of the second half of the twentieth century, to use my father's old term.”

Stills Use Song Father Term Half Century Music Is Bob Electric Dylan Twentieth Century Acoustics Vernacular

Author:Pete Seeger

“For centuries before Google, MIT, and IDEO, modern hotbeds of innovation, we struggled to explain any kind of creation, from the universe itself to the multitudes of ideas around us. While we can make atomic bombs, and dry-clean silk ties, we still don't have satisfying answers for simple questions like: Where do songs come from? Are there an infinite variety of possible kinds of cheese? How did Shakespeare and Stephen King invent so much, while we're satisfied watching sitcom reruns? Our popular answers have been unconvincing, enabling misleading, fantasy-laden myths to grow strong.”

“The centuries will burn rich loads With which we groaned, Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids, While songs are crooned: But they will not dream of us poor lads, Left in the ground.”

Dream Time Song Left Poor Rich Century Warmth Load Lad Lulls

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Wilfred Owen (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Wilfred Owen (Illustrated)

“I think if the United States gave anything to culture at large in the 20th century, the most important contribution made was the popular song.”

Ifs Thinking Made Important States Song Culture United United States Century Contribution 20th Century Popular Song Important Contributions

Author:Linda Ronstadt

“When I write lyrics, I really do go into an automatic folk appropriation mode... I see the vernacular register of 20th century song as being a bunch of forms to adapt and reconfigure.”

Writing Form Song Century Folks Bunch 20th Century Register Appropriation Vernacular

Author:Jonathan Lethem

“Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. . . . For half a century I have been writing thoughts in prose, verse, history, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode, and song. I have tried them all, but I feel I have not said a thousandth part of that which is within me. When I go down to the grave, I can say "I have finished my day's work," but I cannot say "I have finished my life's work."”

“Music, for centuries and centuries, was used to teach everything. It was used to teach language, mathematics, history. The news was music. Everything traveled by song. It was used to teach ethics. It was used to create conscience, probably more than anything.”

Used Song Language Teach Century News Ethics Conscience Mathematics Traveled

Author:T Bone Burnett

“The constants all through the centuries will be the same; wine, women and song. Other than that, life will be very different technologically. In the year 3000 the universe will be expanding as it will forever, infinitely. We will probe outer space but never find life as evolutionized as ours. We were not created by a deity. We created the deity in OUR image. Life began on this planet when the first amoeba split. Mankind will still be seeking God, not accepting that God is a spirit; can't see it, touch it, only feel it. It's called LOVE.”

Feels Years Firsts Stills Different Spirit Song Universe Space Accepting Forever Mankind Century Planets Wine Seeking Splits Expanding Deities Outer Space Seeking God Amoeba

Author:Phyllis Diller

“There were a hundred booksellers in the old round city founded by the eighth-century caliph al-Mansur. The café and wine-drinking culture of Baghdad has been famous for centuries; there was a whole school of Iraqi poets who wrote poems about the wine bars of medieval Baghdad - the khamriyaat, or wine songs, that I quote in the book.”

Has Beens Book Whole School Song Culture Cities Century Poet Hundred Wine Drinking Rounds Bars Als Medieval Baghdad Drinking Wine Caliphs Booksellers

Author:Annia Ciezadlo

“I guess it's kind of the obvious thing for me to do 'cuz it's what I grew up listening to. The songs growing up and everything kind of seem like old music to them, but to me, it's just... good music. And of course I did grow up in England in the 21st Century and that does come into it as well.”

Wells Kind Doe Seems Song Courses Grows Growing Up Growing Century Listening Grew Grew Up England Obvious 21st Century Cuz Obvious Things Old Music

Author:George Ezra

“God Bless America started to become an almost ritualistic incantation at the end of political speeches really with Ronald Reagan. It appears occasionally before, but it was not that common. And of course since it was a song that wasn't written by Irving Berlin until the 20th century (laughter), none of the 19th century presidents said God Bless America at the end of speeches, either. I think that the symbolism which suggests that everybody is religious and that even presidents who believe in church and state feel obliged to do this.”

“It's easy to say that reducing a song to 90 seconds on "American Idol" strips off so many things, and how it's the 21st century and music doesn't mean the same things to people and that it's so disposable.”

People Mean Song Easy Century Seconds Idols 21st Century Reducing Disposable American Idol

Author:Alan Light

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Century Quotes