Song

"Ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante."

"What is not worth saying sounds very well when it is sung."

"It is best of all trades, to make songs, and the second best to sing them."

"[M]aybe you will learn this when I'm gone: My song will carry on."

"The best days of the church have always been its singing days."

"And heaven had wanted one immortal song."

"Sing a song of sixpence."

"My songs has been my messages that I tried to scatter across the back sides and along the steps of the fire escapes and on the window sills and through the dark halls."

"I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. … I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow."

"Song opens a window to the secret places of the soul."

"I deeply felt that song should make One universal link, Uniting, for each other’s sake, All those who feel and think."

"Listen to that song, and learn it! Half my kingdom would I give, As I live, If by such songs you would earn it!"

"I want no more than to speak simply to be granted that grace. Because we've loaded our songs with so much music that they're slowly sinking and we've decorated our art so much that its features have been eaten away by gold and it's time to say our few words because tomorrow our soul sets sail. ...I think so much these days about the great river, that symbol which moves forward among herbs and greenery and beasts that graze and drink, and men who sow and harvest, great tombs even and small habitations of the dead. That current which goes its way and which is not so different from the blood of men..."

"Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song, That old and antique song we heard last night; Methought it did relieve my passion much, More than light airs and recollected terms Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times: Come, but one verse."

"So tell me, am I wrong for trying to communicate through a song?"

"Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought."

"Tout finit par des chansons."

"I cannot sing the old songs Though well I know the tune, Familiar as a cradle-song With sleep-compelling croon; Yet though I'm filled with music, As choirs of summer birds, "I cannot sing the old songs"— I do not know the words."

"All this for a song."

"I can not sing the old songs now! It is not that I deem them low, 'Tis that I can't remember how They go."

"Unlike my subject now * * * shall be my song, It shall be witty and it sha'n't be long!"

"A song of hate is a song of Hell; Some there be who sing it well. Let them sing it loud and long, We lift our hearts in a loftier song: We lift our hearts to Heaven above, Singing the glory of her we love, England."

"Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound; She feels no biting pang the while she sings, Nor as she turns the giddy wheel around, Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things."

"He play'd an ancient ditty long since mute, In Provence call'd, "La belle dame sans merci.""

"We are tenting tonight on the old camp ground, Give us a song to cheer."

"In the ink of our sweat we will find it yet, The song that is fit for men!"

"The song on its mighty pinions Took every living soul, and lifted it gently to heaven."

"Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer."

"And grant that when I face the grisly Thing, My song may trumpet down the gray Perhaps Let me be as a tune-swept fiddlestring That feels the Master Melody—and snaps."

"She makes her hand hard with labour, and her heart soft with pity: and when winter evenings fall early (sitting at her merry wheel), she sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune … and fears no manner of ill because she means none."

"I think, whatever mortals crave, With impotent endeavor, A wreath—a rank—a throne—a grave— The world goes round forever; I think that life is not too long, And therefore I determine, That many people read a song, Who will not read a sermon."

"Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song?"

"Etiam singulorum fatigatio quamlibet se rudi modulatione solatur."

"Builders, raise the ceiling high, Raise the dome into the sky, Hear the wedding song! For the happy groom is near, Tall as Mars, and statelier, Hear the wedding song!"

"Song forbids victorious deeds to die."

"The lively Shadow-World of Song."

"Songs consecrate to truth and liberty."

"Knitting and withal singing, and it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to work."

"Because the gift of Song was chiefly lent, To give consoling music for the joys We lack, and not for those which we possess."

"They sang of love and not of fame; Forgot was Britain's glory; Each heart recalled a different name, But all sang "Annie Laurie.""

"Short swallow-flights of song, that dip Their wings in tears, and skim away."

"Cantilenam eandem canis."

"Cicala to cicala is dear, and ant to ant, and hawks to hawks, but to me the muse and song."

"Grasshopper to grasshopper, ant to ant is dear, Hawks love hawks, but I the muse and song."

"Swift, swift, and bring with you Song's Indian summer!"

"Martem accendere cantu."

"Soft words, with nothing in them, make a song."

"A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not mis-become a monarch."

"Bring the good old bugle, boys! we'll sing another song— Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along— Sing it as we used to sing it, fifty thousand strong, While we were marching through Georgia."