Harp Quotes

“…everything has a past. Everything – a person, an object, a word, everything. If you don’t know the past, you can’t understand the present and plan properly for the future.”
― Chaim Potok, Davita's Harp

“A harp can be a dangerous as a sword, in the right hands.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings.”
― John Muir, The Wilderness World of John Muir

“The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, in Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man's body and reduce it to harmony.”
― Francis Bacon, The Oxford Francis Bacon IV: The Advancement of Learning

“White Iris

The iris danced across
the ancient Grecian skies
gliding with her embossed
satiny milken sides ...”
― Muse, Enigmatic Evolution

“I have become intoxicated again.
You are such a potent wine, my friend.
To escape your withdrawal effects,
tomorrow I will drink in excess.

Alas, why make me love?
I was aware, conscious, and sensible before.
I am ill by cause of this illusion.
The devil plays tricks on me more and more.

I was a harp you immaculately plucked at will.
Your score, the nightingale song within
notes composed to imprison and bear me wings.
Oh, if only they could hear how it sings!

I am now beyond parched.
My strings left untouched.
You are no longer an oasis, my friend,
but a mirage soon coming to an end.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“I stood on the edge of that abyss between man and beast and played my harp for you, checking each note, one by one, to see if it would reach you.”
― Nahoko Uehashi, The Beast Player

“Men know how to read printed books; they do not know how to read the unprinted ones. They can play on a stringed harp, but not on a stringless one. Applying themselves to the superficial instead of the profound, how should they understand music or poetry?

From the Saikontan, by Kojisei (circa 1600) cited in Haiku by Robert Blyth, circa 1947 Tokyo, p. 73.

”
― Kojisei

“Strike, with hand of fire, O weird musician, thy harp strung with Apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering 'mid the vine-clad hills. But know, your sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh—the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy. O rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the beasts and men; and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. O Laughter, rose-lipped daughter of Joy, there are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty Of Man, Woman And Child

“There existed very long saxophones from years ago. The player sat on their chair like a cellist; that same sort of feeling to it as well - unlike for example the way a harpist would be: the whole act differing in a very fundamental sense. Although harpists are fine. There is nothing to be said against harpists by any means whatsoever.”
― James Kelman, A Disaffection

“Glorious is the Voice of Man, and sweet is the music of the harp.”
― Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley

“Our life contains a thousand springs,
And dies if one be gone.
Strange that a harp of thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long.”
― William Billings

“… in these new days and in these new pages a philosophical tradition of the spontaneity of speculation kind has been rekindled on the sacred isle of Éire, regardless of its creative custodian never having been taught how to freely speculate, how to profoundly question, and how to playfully define.

Spontaneity of speculation being synonymous with the philosophical-poetic, the philosophical-poetic with the rural philosopher-poet, and by roundelay the rural philosopher-poet thee with the spontaneity of speculation be.

And by the way of the rural what may we say?
A philosopher-poet of illimitable space we say.

Iohannes Scottus Ériugena the metaphor of old salutes you; salutes your lyrical ear and your skilful strumming of the rippling harp.

(Source: Hearing in the Write, Canto 19, Ivy-muffled)”
― Richard Mc Sweeney, Hearing in the Write

“It was a girl playing a harp, like in an orchestra. It was in this tree at our campsite. And since it was breezy weather that weekend, the girl's arms were almost always turning.”
― Paul Fleischman, Whirligig

“Ducks are a lot like lightning, I thought to myself as I played my electric guitar. Or was it a harp? I get those two farm tools mixed up.”
― Jarod Kintz, BearPaw Duck And Meme Farm presents: Two Ducks Brawling Is A Pre-Pillow Fight

“She turned up the cherubic harp music. Each song is twenty minutes long and meanders like a bitchy cat. The woman's high folksy voice hurts our teeth but we would never tell Bunny this. We said we loved this song. So much. But Bunny wasn't listening. Bunny was singing along in her own high voice. Cherubic harp music is her very, very favorite.”
― Mona Awad, Bunny

“Maybe humans aren't emotional enough, Lieutenant. (Outside the Wire Movie)”
― Rowan Athale, Rob Yescombe

“I just felt a bit detached with piano. You know, you stare at the thing from above, like you're some kind of its superior or something. I don't like to feel like I'm intimidating it, you know? It's not like that with harp. Because I have to hug it, you know? I feel like I have to love it, to the point where it's capable of producing something beautiful.”
― Ziggy Zezsyazeoviennazabrizkie, San Francisco

“The other two branches are slightly more obscure. One is a stag’s skull, and the other a harp. Obviously one of them is for the dour knight and the other for the púca, but I have no idea which is which.
Is the grumpiest member of the Guard a secret musician?”
― Marie Mistry, Beyond the Faerie Gate