Good music is very close to primitive language.
Interpretation
Music expresses emotions and thoughts akin to how language conveys meaning.
Denis Diderot highlights the deep connection between music and language, suggesting that music communicates feelings and ideas in a fundamental, instinctive way that predates complex verbal communication. This perspective emphasizes the universal nature of music as a form of expression that transcends cultural and linguistic barriers, tapping into the primal aspects of human experience.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about the impact of music in cultural identity.
The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.
This root [the potato], no matter how much you prepare it, is tasteless and floury. It cannot pass for an agreeable food, but it supplies a food sufficiently abundant and sufficiently healthy for men who ask only to sustain themselves. The potato is criticized with reason for being windy, but what matters windiness for the vigorous organisms of peasants and laborers?
Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.
In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
The reason why the music [jazz] is important is because it's an art form-an ancient art form-that takes in the mythology of our people.
We have the script, we have the actors, and we're trying to figure out what this is, and you don't know what it is. You have to be open to what it's going to become rather than have this thing that you're trying to get to, which is boring.
Casting sometimes is fate and destiny more than skill and talent, from a director's point of view.
Perhaps one of the most difficult things for us to do is to choose a notable and joyous dress for men. There would be more joy in life if we were to accustom ourselves to use all the beautiful colours we can in fashioning our own clothes.
I've always written songs the same way. You learn different tricks - you learn craft, you learn structure, all that - as you go.
Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.
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