A Quote by Thomas Merton

Music and art and poetry attune the soul to God.

Thomas Merton

Quote Topics

Art God Music Poetry Soul

Quote Author

Thomas Merton
American - Author
January 31, 1915 - December 10, 1968

Poetry and music are the best at the highest level of the human mind. Out of poetry, out of their need for poetry, human beings have developed the idea of God. And so when we sing, when we dance, when we speak poetry we are speaking out of God's mouth, each other out of the music from God's heart.

Maya Angelou

Mechanical Animals for me documents the repair of my emotions, the repair of my soul, and this record does deal with God in a different way. It deals with me finding God in art, and in music. I think there's more spirituality in art than you could find in a church

Marilyn Manson

What science cannot declare, art can suggest; what art suggests silently, poetry speaks aloud; but what poetry fails to explain in words, music can express. Whoever knows the mystery of vibrations indeed knows all things.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Natural emotion is the soul of poetry, as melody is of music; the same faults are engendered by over-study of either art; there is a lack of sincerity, of irresistible impulse in both the poet and the, composer.

Edmund Clarence Stedman

Poetry is music though, unfortunately, not all music is poetry. Because music has other carriers to take its message - beats, lyrics, singers, bass players - anyone in music can rise to make a major statement but in poetry there are only words to do the work. And they do sometimes have to sweat.

Nikki Giovanni

The greatest productions of art, whether painting, music, sculpture or poetry, have invariably this quality-something approaching the work of God.

D.T. Suzuki

It's like soul music, isn't it all soul music? Otherwise what is it, non-soul music? I-have-no-soul music? Soulless music? People need to put a name on something to identify it, and I understand it.

Mark Lanegan

To the question, ‘Is the cinema an art?’ my answer is, ‘what does it matter?’... You can make films or you can cultivate a garden. Both have as much claim to being called an art as a poem by Verlaine or a painting by Delacroix… Art is ‘making.’ The art of poetry is the art of making poetry. The art of love is the art of making love... My father never talked to me about art. He could not bear the word.

Jean Renoir

Art begs you to notice it. Why? Because art is God's way of saying hello. So pay attention to poetry. Pay attention to music. Pay attention to paintings and sculptures and photo exhibits and ballets and plays. Don't let all this go unnoticed. Your world is shouting out to you, revealing something intrinsically glorious about itself. Listen carefully. Love art, the way art loves life.

Neale Donald Walsch

Soul music is soul music. It can be wrapped up in a neo soul package; it can be called hip-hop soul. But soul is soul, and it's been around; it will never go away.

Maxwell

Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.

Martin Luther

I see in the melody of Nature, God. It is a wonderful work of art. The spirit of the art is wonderful. And I feel that I am myself because I have never taken music lightly. Music is the manifestation of God, like everything else.

Pablo Casals

As poetry is the harmony of words, so music is that of notes; and as poetry is a rise above prose and oratory, so is music the exaltation of poetry.

Henry Purcell

To me, art begets art. Painting feeds the eye just as poetry feeds the ear, which is to say that both feed the soul.

Susan Vreeland

Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.