Music is the universal language of mankind. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Smartyfair

Leave without saving?

You have a change that hasn’t been saved yet. Clicking out of the box saves it — closing now throws that change away.

Music is the universal language of mankind. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Smartyfair

Music is the universal language of mankind.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882 · poet · 1800s USAHenry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet whose story-poems, like Paul Revere's Ride and The Song of Hiawatha, were memorized and recited in homes and schoolrooms across America.1 quote

Source found

In plain words

Music is something everyone in the world can understand, even without words.

Look up a word

music
universal
language
mankind

Where these words come from

How sure this is: 90% sureThese words were traced back to where they first appeared. That source is listed below.
What turned up: Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea (1835), chapter on ancient Spanish ballads: 'Music is the universal language of mankind, — poetry their universal pastime and delight.' Short form is the standard excerpt.
Work: Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea
Occasion: 1835 · writing about Spain's traditional ballads and songs
Sources checked: archive.orgChecked using claude-fable-5, 21 August 2026Primary text (1851 complete edition scan) — sentence confirmed by direct fetch this pass

More on music

Melody is the essence of music.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

More history

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

Music

1800s

en.wikiquote.org

Checked using claude-fable-5, 21 August 2026

Sourced section naming Outre-Mer (1835)

Nothing made from these words yet — Storyfaire is where they get made.

Music must never offend the ear, even in most horrendous situations, but must always be pleasing.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Melody and harmony should be simply tools in the hands of the artist, with which he creates music.

Where words fail, sounds can often speak.

Hans Christian Andersen

Rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.

Sometimes I am so full of music, and so overflowing with melody, that I find it simply impossible to write down anything.

Robert Schumann

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu

In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Marcus Aurelius

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Marcus Aurelius