38 Quotes by Nadia Boulanger

As far as the execution is concerned ... the most frequent and most serious mistake is to follow the music instead of preceding it.

The art of music is so deep and profound that to approach it very seriously only is not enough. One must approach music with a serious rigor and, at the same time, with a great, affectionate joy.

It is one thing to be gifted and quite another thing to be worthy of one's own gift.

False notes can be forgiven, false music cannot.

Do nothing for effect. Do it for truth.

It is nothing to succeed if one has not taken great trouble, and it is nothing to fail if one has done the best one could.

Nothing is better than music; when it takes us out of time, it has done more for us than we have the right to hope for: it has broadened the limits of our sorrowful life, it has lit up the sweetness of our hours of happiness by effacing the pettinesses that diminish us, bringing us back pure and new to what was, what will be, what music has created for us.

To study music, we must learn the rules. To create music, we must break them.

A great work of art is made out of a combination of obedience and liberty