Leonard Bernstein Quotations

The 20th century has been a badly written drama, from the beginning.

It would be nice to hear someone accidentally whistle something of mine, somewhere, just once.

I believe that man's noblest endowment is his capacity to change.

Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.

Which of my Jewish roots do I follow?

Einstein said that the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. So why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery?

I believe that from the earth emerges a musical poetry that is by the nature of its sources tonal. I believe that these sources cause to exist a phonology of music, which evolves from the universal, and is known as the harmonic series.

Perhaps the chief requirement of [the conductor] is that he be humble before the composer; that he never interpose himself between the music and the audience; that all his efforts, however strenuous or glamorous, be made in the service of the composer's meaning - the music itself, which, after all, is the whole reason for the conductor's existence.

From New Year's on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining.

When the thunder rumbles, Now the age of gold is dead. When the dreams we've clung to Trying to stay young, Have left us parched and old instead. When my courage crumbles, When I feel confused and frail, When my spirit falters on decaying altars And my illusions fail -- I go on right then. I go on again. I go on to say I will celebrate another day. I go on. If tomorrow tumbles And everything I love is gone, I will face regret all my days, and yet I will still go on.