Quotes by Claude Debussy

“There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law. I love music passionately. And because l love it, I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it. It is a free art gushing ...”

“Music is the silence between the notes.”

“There is nothing is more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in all that book which, alas, musicians read but too little - the book o...”

“The century of airplanes has a right to its own music.”

“Music is the expression of the movement of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes.”

“I love music passionately. And because I love it I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it.”

“Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with immediate enjoyment, must impress us or insinuate itself into us without any effort on our part.”

“Art is the most beautiful of all lies.”

“Works of art make rules rules do not make works of art.”

“Extreme complication is contrary to art.”

“The attraction of the virtuoso for the public is very like that of the circus for the crowd. There is always the hope that something dangerous will happen.”

“Art is the most beautiful deception of all. And although people try to incorporate the everyday events of life in it, we must hope that it will remain a deception lest it become a utilitarian thing...”

“The colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams.”

“I confess that I am no longer thinking in musical terms, or at least not much, even though I believe with all my heart that Music remains for all time the finest means of expression we have. It’s j...”

“Collect impressions. Don’t be in a hurry to write them down. Because that’s something music can do better than painting: it can centralise variations of colour and light within a single picture — a...”

“Every sound perceived by the acute ear in the rhythm of the world about us can be represented musically. Some people wish above all to conform to the rules, I wish only to render what I can hear.”

“The worship of Adonis is united with that of Christ.”

“Do you really think that my music is devoid of religious antecedents? Do you wish to put an artist's soul under restraint? Do you find it difficult to conceive that one who sees mystery in everythi...”

“I do not practise religion in accordance with the sacred rites. I have made mysterious Nature my religion. I do not believe that a man is any nearer to God for being clad in priestly garments, nor ...”

“I wish to write down my musical dreams in a spirit of utter self-detachment. I wish to sing of my interior visions with the naïve candour of a child. No doubt, this simple musical grammar will jar ...”