The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
When neither is attended.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) Portia, in The Merchant of Venice, act 5, sc. 1, l. 102-3.

Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.
Edgar Albert Guest (1881–1959) It Couldn't Be Done (l. 23–24). . .


Swans sing before they die—'twere no bad thing
Should certain persons die before they sing.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) Epigram on a Bad Singer, Poetical Works, ed. James Dyke Campbell (1893).


If we cannot sing of faith and triumph, we will sing our despair. We will be that kind of bird. There are day owls, and there are night owls, and each is beautiful and even musical while about its business.

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) Letter, December 22, 1853, to Harrison Blake, in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 6, p. 224, Houghton Mifflin (1906).

I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.
Billie Holiday (1915–1959) and William Dufty. Lady Sings the Blues, ch. 4 (1956, rev. 1975).

All found in:
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