Leonard Bernstein Quotes

11 quotes

American conductor and composer (1918–1990)

“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”

"Music . . . can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable."

on Art

"Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable."

on Art

"To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time."

on Success

"This will be our reply to violence:to make music more intensely,more beautifully,more devotedly than ever before."

on Creativity

"Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning ... except its own."

on Art

"To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time."

on Success

"Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long."

on Writing

"I'm no longer quite sure what the question is, but I do know that the answer is Yes."

on Humor

"I've been all over the world and I've never seen a statue of a critic."

on Humor

"Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors."

on Art