Claude Debussy Quotes


"Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Art, Rules)

"There is nothing is more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in all that book which, alas, musicians read but too little - the book of Nature."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Nature, Development, Example, Musicians, Nothing, Sunset, Will)

"The century of airplanes has a right to its own music."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Music, Airplanes, Right)

"The attraction of the virtuoso for the public is very like that of the circus for the crowd. There is always the hope that something dangerous will happen."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Hope, Public, Will)

"People come to music to seek oblivion: is that not also a form of deception?"
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Music, People, Deception)

"Music is the expression of the movement of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Music, Expression, Play)

"Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, Light)

"In opera, there is always too much singing."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Opera, Singing)

"Art is the most beautiful deception of all. And although people try to incorporate the everyday events of life in it, we must hope that it will remain a deception lest it become a utilitarian thing, sad as a factory."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Art, Life, People, Hope, Deception, Events, Will)

"Some people wish above all to conform to the rules, I wish only to render what I can hear. There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: People, Law, Pleasure, Rules, Theory)

"I wish to sing of my interior visions with the naive candour of a child."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Visions)

"A beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Dawn, Sunset)

"Art is the most beautiful of all lies."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Art, Lies)

"Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with immediate enjoyment, must impress us or insinuate itself into us without any effort on our part."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Beauty, Effort, Enjoyment, Senses)

"Extreme complication is contrary to art."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Art, Extreme)

"First of all, ladies and gentlemen, you must forget that you are singers."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: First, Forget, Ladies, Gentlemen)

"How much has to be explored and discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Feeling)

"I love music passionately. And because I love it I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it."
- Claude Debussy
(Related: Love, Music, Traditions)