Music Quotes by John Cage

A finished work is exactly that, requires resurrection.

— John Cage

When we separate music from life we get art.

— John Cage

Everything you do is music, and everywhere is the best seat.

— John Cage

Music is a means of rapid transportation.

— John Cage

One need not fear for the future of music.

— John Cage

When we separate music from life we get is art.

— John Cage

My favorite piece of music is the one we hear all the time if we are quiet.

— John Cage

Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation.

— John Cage

Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical.

— John Cage

Some people take music too seriously, and some don't take it seriously enough, others take it just right.

— John Cage

Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of…

— John Cage

My favorite piece [piece of music] is the one we hear all the time if we are quiet.

— John Cage

With just one musician, you can really do an unlimited number of things on the inside of the piano, if you have…

— John Cage

Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we…

— John Cage

I remember loving sound before I ever took a music lesson. And so we make our lives by what we love.

— John Cage

If this word "music" is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization…

— John Cage

I believe the use of noise to make music will increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical…

— John Cage

For myself and my own experience now, I don't really need any music. I have enough to listen to with just the…

— John Cage

People paying attention to vibratory activity, not in reaction to a fixed ideal performance, but each time attentively to how it happens…

— John Cage

So somebody has talent? So what? Dime a dozen. And we're overpopulated. Actually we have more food than we have people and…

— John Cage

The Indians long ago knew that music was going on permanently and that hearing it was like looking out a window at…

— John Cage

When I went to the analyst for a kind of preliminary meeting, he said, 'I'll be able to fix you so that…

— John Cage

There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things…

— John Cage

It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one,…

— John Cage

Discord occasions a momentary distress to the ear, which remains unsatisfied, and even uneasy, until it hears something better. I am convinced...that…

— John Cage

After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, ‘In order to write music, you must have a feeling…

— John Cage

What is the purpose of writing music? One is, of course, not dealing with purposes but dealing with sounds. Or the answer…

— John Cage

Percussion music is revolution. Sound and rhythm have too long been submissive to the restrictions of nineteenth century music. Today we are…

— John Cage

When I hear what we call ‘music,’ it seems to me that someone is talking. And talking about his feelings, or about…

— John Cage

I imagine that as contemporary music goes on changing in the way that I'm changing it what will be done is to…

— John Cage

We are living in a period in which many people have changed their mind about what the use of music is or…

— John Cage

“Before leaving the earth altogether, let us as: How does Music stand with respect to its instruments, their pitches, the scales, modes…

— John Cage

The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.

— John Cage

Everything we do is music." (Classical Composer)(From: 4'33")

— John Cage

My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard

— John Cage

A 'mistake' is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is.

— John Cage

When you make music you are acting as a philosopher. You can either do that consciously or you can do it unconsciously,…

— John Cage

I needed another basis for musical structure. This I found in sound's duration parameter, sound's only parameter which is present even when…

— John Cage

Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?

— John Cage

Let no one imagine that in owning a recording he has the music. The very practice of music is a celebration that…

— John Cage