Top 34 Quotes & Sayings by Yip Harburg

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American lyricist Yip Harburg.

Last updated on September 18, 2024.

Edgar Yipsel Harburg was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow". He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his leftist leanings. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of religion.

American - Lyricist | April 8, 1896 - March 5, 1981

Source: Wikipedia

It's a Barnum and Bailey world, Just as phony as it can be...

Yip Harburg

I am one of the last of a small tribe of troubadours, who still believe that life is a beautiful and exciting journey with a purpose and grace which are well worth singing about.

Yip Harburg

The world would be a safer place, If someone had a plan, Before exploring outer space, To find the inner man.

Yip Harburg

No matter how high or great the throne, What sits on it is the same as your own.

Yip Harburg

Ira [Gershwin] was the shyest, most diffident boy we had ever known. In a class of lower east side rapscallions, his soft-spoken gentleness and low-keyed personality made him a lovable incongruity. He spoke in murmurs, hiding behind a pair of steel-rimmed glasses..Ira had a kid brother who wore high stiff collars, shirts with cuffs and went out with girls.

Yip Harburg

No matter how much I prove and prod, I cannot quite believe in God; But oh, I hope to God that He, Unswervingly believes in me.

Yip Harburg

WHERE and WHEN, Are lost in space. THERE and THEN, Do not embrace. So before we disappear, Come sweet NOW and kiss the HERE.

Yip Harburg

Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Yip Harburg

A Russian child asked his mother : "does God know we don't believe in Him?"

Yip Harburg

My whole family has been having trouble with immigrants ever since we came to this country.

Yip Harburg

Lives of great men all remind us, Greatness takes no easy way, All the heroes of tomorrow, Are the heretics of today. Socrates and Galileo, John Brown, Thoreau, Christ, and Debs, Heard the night cry "Down with traitors!" And the dawn shout "Up the rebs!"

Yip Harburg

Did God who gave us flowers and trees, Also provide the allergies?

Yip Harburg

My heart wants roots My mind wants wings. I cannot bear Their bickerings.

Yip Harburg

Lives of great men all remind us greatness takes no easy way.

Yip Harburg

Virtue is its own revenge.

Yip Harburg

Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.

Yip Harburg

We gotta be free - The eagle and me. see Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Emancipation of Women

Yip Harburg

Music gives 'wings' to words.

Yip Harburg

Oh, innocent victims of Cupid, remember this terse little verse: To let a fool kiss you is stupid. To let a kiss fool you is worse.

Yip Harburg

When the melody touches your heart emotionally and the words hit your brain intellectually, more than likely you'll find you'll have an excellent song to sing.

Yip Harburg

When I'm not near the girl I love, I love the girl I'm near.

Yip Harburg

They who meet on an April night are forever lost in love, if there's moonlight all about and there's no moon above.

Yip Harburg

As the writer of the lyric of the song 'God's Country,' I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy.

Yip Harburg

Someday I'll wish upon a star.

Yip Harburg

Songs are the pulse of a nation's heart. A fever chart of its health.

Yip Harburg

When the idle poor, Become the idle rich, You'll never know, Just who is who, Or who is which.

Yip Harburg

The greatest romance in the life of a lyricist is when the right word meets the right note; often, however, a Park Avenue phrase elopes with a Bleecker Street chord, resulting in a shotgun wedding and a quickie divorce.

Yip Harburg

For what we are about to receive, Oh Lord 'tis Thee we thank,' said the cannibal as he cut a slice off the missionary's shank.

Yip Harburg

This we learn from Watergate that almost any creep'll be glad to help the Government overthrow the people.

Yip Harburg

I am a rebel by birth... I contest anything that is unjust, that causes suffering in humanity. My feelings about that are so strong, I don't think I could live with myself if I weren't honest.

Yip Harburg

How are things in Glocca Mora this fine day?

Yip Harburg

Say, it's only a paper moon, / Sailing over a cardboard sea.

Yip Harburg

All the heroes of tomorrow are the heretics of today.

Yip Harburg

If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh why can't I?

Yip Harburg