Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's severest rage disarm. Music can soften pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please;
Our joys below it can improve,
And antedate the bliss above.
Sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moans of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.
Who are you to judge the life I live? I know I'm not perfect -and I don't live to be- but before you start pointing fingers... make sure you hands are clean!
My people had used music to soothe slavery's torment or to propitiate God, or to describe the sweetness of love and the distress of lovelessness, but I knew no race could sing and dance its way to freedom.
Genius is its own reward; for the best that one is, one must necessarily be for oneself. . . . Further, genius consists in the working of the free intellect., and as a consequence the productions of genius serve no useful purpose. The work of genius may be music, philosophy, painting, or poetry; it is nothing for use or profit. To be useless and unprofitable is one of the characteristics of genius; it is their patent of nobility.