70 of the Best Igor Stravinsky Quotes About Life (MUSIC)

Page Contents:

Top 10 Most Famous Igor Stravinsky Quotes (BEST)

“My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.”
Igor Stravinsky

I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust. — I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me **opportunities** that all of human **genius** will never exhaust.

Art is the opposite of chaos. Art is organized chaos.

Hurry I have no time to hurry. — Hurry? I have no **time** to hurry.

We in Russia have our Trotskys, and I myself should be highly annoyed if anyone were to take them for authentic Russians.

“I was attacked for being a pasticheur, chided for composing “simple” music, blamed for deserting “modernism,” accused of renouncing my “true Russian heritage.” People who had never heard of, or cared about, the originals cried “sacrilege”: “The classics are ours. Leave the classics alone.” To them all my answer was and is the same: You “respect,” but I love.”
Igor Stravinsky

Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven. — Sins cannot be undone, only **forgiven**.

What I cannot follow are the manic-depressive fluctuations from total control to no control, from the serialization of all elements to chance. — What I cannot follow are the manic-depressive fluctuations from total control to no control, from the serialization of all elements to **chance**.

A cultural snob is someone who claims to be familiar with the incomprehensible. — A **cultural** snob is someone who claims to be familiar with the incomprehensible.

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also. — To listen is an **effort**, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

15 Thought-Provoking Igor Stravinsky Quotes

“A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street anymore without a convoy, and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo; and zoo animals have been known to die from stares.”
Igor Stravinsky

Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn. — **Money** may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn.

Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.

“I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity.”
Igor Stravinsky

Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.

“One’s belief that one is sincere is not so dangerous as one’s conviction that one is right. We all feel we are right; but we felt the same way twenty years ago and today we know we weren’t always right.”
Igor Stravinsky

To continue in one path is to go backward.

The more art is controlled, limited, worked over, the more it is free.

All you have to do is close your eyes and wait for the symbols.

It’s one of nature’s way that we often feel closer to distant generations than to the generation immediately preceding us. — It’s one of **nature**’s way that we often feel closer to distant generations than to the generation immediately preceding us.

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one.

The true creator may be recognized by his ability always to find about him, in the commonest and humblest thing, items worthy of note. — The true creator may be recognized by his ability always to find about him, in the commonest and **humblest** thing, items worthy of note.

Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it. — Invention presupposes **imagination** but should not be confused with it.

19 Igor Stravinsky Quotes About Music

“For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc. Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence. If, as is nearly always the case, music appears to express something, this is only an illusion and not a reality. It is simply an additional attribute which, by tacit and inveterate agreement, we have lent it, thrust upon it, as a label, a convention – in short, an aspect which, unconsciously or by force of habit, we have come to confuse with its essential being.”
Igor Stravinsky

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it. — I haven’t understood a bar of music in my **life**, but I have felt it.

There is music wherever there is rhythm, as there is life wherever there beats a pulse.

“As for myself, I need music for hygienic purposes, for the health of my soul. Without music in its best sense there is chaos. For my part, music is a force which gives reason to things, a force which creates organization, which attunes things. Music probably attended the creation of the universe.”
Igor Stravinsky

My music is best understood by children and animals. — My music is best understood by **children** and animals.

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they should be taught to love it instead. — The trouble with music **appreciation** in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they should be taught to love it instead.

“The phenomenon of music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the co-ordination between man [sic] and time.”
Igor Stravinsky

Music is the sole domain in which man realizes the present.

Music's exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it. — Music’s exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it.

Music is the coordination between man and time.

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.

Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading. — Film music should have the same **relationship** to the film drama that somebody’s piano playing in my living room has on the **book** I am **reading**.

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos — Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don’t like, it’s always by Villa-Lobos?

The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending.

Georgian folk music has more new musical ideas than all the contemporary music.

The perfection of performance has escalated to the extent that the music itself is threatened with relegation.

The profound meaning of music's essential aim is to produce a communion, a union of man with his fellow man with the Supreme Being. — The profound meaning of music’s essential aim is to produce a communion, a union of man with his fellow man with the Supreme Being.

There is no beauty in Music itself, the beauty is within the listener. — There is no **beauty** in Music itself, the beauty is within the listener.

3 Igor Stravinsky Quotes About Artists

One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles.

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.

6 Igor Stravinsky Quotes About Composers

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge. — I have **learned** throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of **wisdom** and **knowledge**.

The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.

Composers combine notes, that's all. — Composers combine notes, that’s all.

The trick is to compose what one wants to compose and to get it commissioned afterward.

A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor, and he should not build houses in which he cannot live.

2 Igor Stravinsky Quotes About Love

Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of being — Is it not by love alone that we **succeed** in penetrating to the very essence of being?

5 Igor Stravinsky Quotes About God

“The further one separates himself from the precepts of the Christian Church, the further one distances himself from the truth. Only God can create. I make music from music.”
Igor Stravinsky

I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received. — I take no pride in my artistic **talents**; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received.

My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey.

“The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church’s greatest ornament.”
Igor Stravinsky

“I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God.”
Igor Stravinsky

10 Igor Stravinsky Quotes That Will Make You Think

“I love ballet and am more interested in it than in anything else. For the only form of scenic art that sets itself, as its cornerstone, the tasks of beauty, and nothing else, is ballet.”
Igor Stravinsky

Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune.

Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it. — Conductors’ **careers** are made for the most part with ‘Romantic’ music. ‘Classic’ music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it.

“Those times have given way to a new age that seeks to reduce everything to uniformity in the realm of matter while it tends to shatter all universality in the realm of the spirit in deference to an anarchic individualism.”
Igor Stravinsky