Quotes by Leonard Bernstein

About Leonard Bernstein:

Leonard Bernstein was an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim. According to music critic Donal Henahan, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history."
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

Leonard Bernstein

A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.

Leonard Bernstein

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

Leonard Bernstein

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

Leonard Bernstein

I'm not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer.

Leonard Bernstein

In the olden days, everybody sang. You were expected to sing as well as talk. It was a mark of the cultured man to sing.

Leonard Bernstein

Any great art work … revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world - the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.

Leonard Bernstein

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another…and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.” —

Leonard Bernstein

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

Leonard Bernstein

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.

Leonard Bernstein

The gift of imagination is by no means an exclusive property of the artist; it is a gift we all share; to some degree or other all of us are endowed with the powers of fantasy, the dullest of dullards among us has the gift of dreams at night - vision...

Leonard Bernstein

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

Leonard Bernstein

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.

Leonard Bernstein

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

Leonard Bernstein

Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.

Leonard Bernstein

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

Leonard Bernstein

Author Bio

  • NameLeonard Bernstein
  • DescriptionAmerican composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist
  • BornAugust 25, 1918
  • DiedOctober 14, 1990
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionConductor; Pianist; Composer; Writer; Choreographer; Musicologist; Jazz Musician
  • WorksSymphony No. 1; Symphony No. 2; Kaddish; West Side Story
  • AwardsGrand Merit Cross Of The Order Of Merit Of The Federal Republic Of Germany; Ring Of Honour Of The City Wien; Great Golden Medal Of Honour For Services To The Republic Of Austria; Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award; Praemium Imperiale; Léonie Sonning Music Prize