Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery
Miles DavisRead
What's swinging in words? If a guy makes you pat your foot and if you feel it down your back, you don't have to ask anybody if that's good music or not. You can always feel it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of good music is felt deeply rather than analyzed intellectually.
This quote by Miles Davis emphasizes that the true value of music lies in its emotional impact, rather than in the technical details or opinions of others. When music resonates within us, creating physical sensations like tapping our feet or feeling thrills down our spine, it proves its worth without the need for external validation.
Themes
MusicEmotionFeelingArtistic ExpressionExperience
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of music in culture.
More from Miles Davis
All quotes →Joao Gilberto on guitar could read a newspaper and sound good.
Miles DavisRead
I was minding my own business when something says to me, "you ought to blow trumpet." I have just been trying ever since.
Miles DavisRead
When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.
Miles DavisRead
Don't play what's there, play what's not there.
Miles DavisRead
My ego only needs a good rhythm section
Miles DavisRead
Similar quotes
It's not what you see that is art. Art is the gap.
Marcel DuchampRead
The idea that one might use art for 'instrumental' reasons tends to set off alarm bells at the heart of the cultural elite, who contend that it's not a pill, that it shouldn't be asked to perform some specific function, especially something as egocentric as to 'cheer you up' or to 'make you a more empathetic person.'
Alain De BottonRead
I was never interested in looking at myself in an aesthetic mirror. My intention was always to get away from myself, though I knew perfectly well that I was using myself. Call it a little game between 'I' and 'me.'
Marcel DuchampRead
A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.
W. H. AudenRead
You always need that spark of imagination. Sometimes I'm midway through a book before it happens. However, I don't wait for the muse to descend, I sit down every day and I work when I'm not delivering lambs on the farm.
Barbara KingsolverRead
These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on old dry plates of sixty years ago... I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. Any they in turn seem to be aware of me.
Ansel AdamsRead