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Gustav Holst Quotes

Music, being identical with heaven, isn't a thing of momentary thrills, or even hourly ones. It's a condition of eternity.

Music, being identical with heaven, isn't a thing of momentary thrills, or even hourly ones. It's a condition of eternity.

Gustav Holst
Music, Heaven, Thrill
Gustav Holst, Michael Short, William Gillies Whittaker (1974). “Gustav Holst, letters to W. G. Whittaker”, University of Glasgow French and German Publications

Failure is the most important part of an artist's training, and one you cannot afford to do without.

Gustav Holst
Artist, Training, Important

The enormity of the universe revealed by science cannot readily be grasped by the human brain, but the music of The Planets enables the mind to acquire some comprehension of the vastness of space where rational understanding fails.

Gustav Holst
Space, Understanding, Brain
"Gustav Holst 1874-1934: A Centenary Documentation". Book by Michael Short, 1974.

I’ve learned what ‘classical’ means. It means something that sings and dances through sheer joy of existence.

Gustav Holst
Mean, Joy, Musical

Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.

Gustav Holst
Nuisance, Stimulation, Composing
Gustav Holst, Michael Short, William Gillies Whittaker (1974). “Gustav Holst, letters to W. G. Whittaker”, University of Glasgow French and German Publications

Always ask for advice but never take it.

Gustav Holst
Advice, Asks
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst (1959). “Heirs and rebels: letters written to each other and occasional writings on music”

Music-making as a means of getting money is hell

Gustav Holst
Mean, Get Money, Hell

The Heavenly Spheres make music for us, The Holy Twelve dance with us, All things join in the dance! Ye who dance not, know not what we are knowing.

Gustav Holst
Knowing, Twelve, Spheres

One of the advantages of being over forty is that one begins to learn the difference between knowing and realising.

Gustav Holst
Differences, Knowing, Advantage
Gustav Holst, Michael Short, William Gillies Whittaker (1974). “Gustav Holst, letters to W. G. Whittaker”, University of Glasgow French and German Publications

There is no room in music for the second-rate - it might just as well be the nineteenth-rate.

Gustav Holst
Might, Rooms, Rate

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