A Quote by Leon Festinger

When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance.

Leon Festinger

Quote Topics

Actively Addition Avoid Dissonance Increase Information Likely Person Present Reduce Situations Trying Which Will Would

Quote Author

Leon Festinger
American - Psychologist
May 8, 1919 - February 11, 1989

Consonance, says the dictionary, is the combination of several tones into a harmonic unit. Dissonance results from the deranging of this harmony by the addition of tones foreign to it. One must admit that all this is not clear. Ever since it appeared in our vocabulary, the word 'dissonance' has carried with it a certain odor of sinfulness. Let us light our lantern: in textbook language, dissonance is an element of transition, a complex or interval of tones that is not complete in itself and that must be resolved to the ear's satisfaction into a perfect consonance.

Igor Stravinsky

Of course I have used dissonance in my time, but there has been too much dissonance. Bach used dissonance as good salt for his music. Others applied pepper, seasoned the dishes more and more highly, till all healthy appetites were sick and until the music was nothing but pepper.

Sergei Prokofiev

I would like to have people hear dissonance, but I don't want it to be so off-putting that they never get there to begin with. That's actually how I hear it; that's what's pleasant to me. I don't like dense, chaotic dissonance. My brain gets lost. I need something to hang onto.

Patricia Barber

Music needs the juxtaposition of opposites to achieve its drama, so harshness and dissonance are simply part of the material a musician can use to create a musical work. All one thing is a bore - all dissonance, or all fatuous consonance. George Winston and Guns and Roses are two sides of the same worthless coin in my esthetic world.

Chuck Israels

Fast-moving views are not likely to be strongly held views. Instead, they're much more likely to be about people mirroring back the signals they see coming from the leaders they support. People can resolve dissonance by shifting their own view on issues that aren't top of mind.

Kristen Soltis Anderson

Being thankful helps you to be present.People commit errors because they are not present.I would encourage women and men to be present - you'll avoid falling into certain pits.For instance, if you know that a person has just lost his wife or her husband or lover, it's unlikely that you will say something that will hurt that person's feelings if you're truly paying attention. You'll make a sweeter life for yourself and for those around you if you are present.

Maya Angelou

One can think of a secretary actively operating a filing system, of a librarian actively cataloguing books, of a computer actively sorting out information. The mind however does not actively sort out information. The information sorts itself out and organises itself into patterns. The mind is passive. The mind only provides an opportunity for the information to behave in this way. The mind provides a special environment in which information can become self-organising. This special environment is a memory surface with special characteristics.

Edward de Bono

If a person plays dissonance long enough, it will sound like consonance. It's a language that was alien and then it's less and less alien as it continues to live.

Keith Jarrett

When I had my first experiences of choral singing, the dissonance of those close harmonies was so exquisite that I would giggle or I would tear up, and I felt it in a physical way.

Eric Whitacre

What I do is create a lens through my work that corrects my readers' cognitive dissonance and says: you will see all of it - not what you want or what makes you comfortable, but all of it. And you will not erase what displeases you.

Chris Abani

Articulate words are a harsh clamor and dissonance. When man arrives at his highest perfection, he will again be dumb.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Music would lose its charm were not dissonance interspersed at frequent intervals. The closer a composer can come to discord without actually entering it in the score, the more pleasing will be his composition when given life through musical instruments.

Max Heindel

Finding beauty in the dissonance.

Maynard James Keenan

If only all the contradictory voices shouting in my head would calm down and sing a song in unison, whatever it was I wouldn't care as long as they sang without dissonance.