29 Timeless Piano Quotes

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Got something to say, say it with music! Or in this case, quotable piano quotes that famous musicians and great thinkers have said that are relatable to music.

Here is a collection of 29 timeless quotes to inspire and motivate!

29 Piano Quotes for Inspiration & Motivation

• Funny Piano Quotes
• Quotes for Piano Practice
• Quotes for Musical Inspiration
• Quotes about Musical Compositions
• Philosophical Quotes

Funny Piano Quotes

“Many people have asked me why there are three pedals in these grand pianos. Well the pedal in the middle is there to separate the two other pedals.”

~ Victor Borge

“(Referring to the piano's natural shape) Isn't it a shame when those big fat opera singers lean against the pianos and bend them?” 

~ Victor Borge

"There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself."

~ Johann Sebastian Bach

"Over the piano was printed a notice: 'Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best'."

~ Oscar Wilde

“Have I a secret about playing the piano? It is a very simple one. I sit down on the piano-stool and make myself comfortable - and I always make sure that the lid over the keyboard is open before I start to play.” 

~ Artur Schnabel

Quotes for Piano Practice

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

~Albert Einstein

"Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time."

~ George Bernard Shaw

“The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.”

~ Thelonious Monk

“An amateur practices until he can do a thing right, a professional until he can’t do it wrong.”

~ Percy C. Buck

"Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”

~Frederick Chopin

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, then starting on the first one."

~ Mark Twain

“Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are right.”

~ Henry Ford

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

~ Aristotle

“When you play, never mind who listens to you.”

~ Robert Schumann

Quotes for Musical Inspiration

“The piano keys are black and white but they sound like a million colors in your mind.”

~ Maria Cristina Mena

''Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.''

~Albert Einstein

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

~Mark Twain

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides!

~Artur Schnabel

“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence in between.”

~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence."

~ Leopold Stokowski

“There are eighty-eight keys on a piano and within that, an entire universe.” 

~ James Rhodes

“To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.”

~ Ludwig van Beethoven

Quotes About Musical Compositions

"Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years."

~ William F. Buckley, Jr

"The sonatas of Mozart are unique; they are too easy for children, and too difficult for artists."

~ Artur Schnabel

"Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket."

~ Henri Rabaud

Philosophical Piano Quotes

"Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it."

~ Tom Lehrer

"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music."

~ Sergei Rachmaninov

“The piano is able to communicate the subtlest universal truths by means of wood, metal and vibrating air.”

~ Kenneth Miller

"Prayer is when you talk to God. Meditation is when you're listening. Playing the piano allows you to do both at the same time."

~Kelsey Grammer

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