Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.

 

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
--
Source: "Nowadays what isn't worth saying is sung" (Aujourd'hui ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'?tre dit, on le chante) — Pierre de Beaumarchais, Le Barbier de Séville (1775), act I, scene II.
--
In George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, act II, there is the following dialogue: TANNER: Let me remind you that Voltaire said that what was too silly to be said could be sung. STRAKER. It wasn't Voltaire: it was Bow Mar Shay. TANNER. I stand corrected: Beaumarchais of course.
--
This quote has also been attributed to Joseph Addison. In The Spectator, 21 March 1711, Addison wrote of "an establish'd Rule, which is receiv'd as such to this Day, That nothing is capable of being well set to Musick, that is not Nonsense."

 

Voltaire

» Voltaire - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

I don't make art, I make spoken and sung journalism.

 

Tom Ze

 

As poets we do not ask permission before we begin to practise, for there is no authority to license us. We do not inquire whether it is still possible to pen a drama, for the answer to that question is ours alone to give. It is our drama, spoken or sung, that asserts our right to the title of poet. It is our decision that counts, and not the opinion of some theatre management, or the ponderings of the critic, or even the advice of our friendliest mentors.

 

James Fenton

 

The words of the great French anthem rang out over the town square, sung for the first time by liberated Frenchmen in the free capital of Normandy and sung with such a feeling of life and warmth as has not been heard in France for four years.

 

Larry LeSueur

 

Mrs. Bush: I don’t think there is anything wrong with singing it in Spanish. The point is it’s the United States national anthem and what people want is it to be sung in a way that respects the United States and our culture. At the same time, we are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of many, many languages, because immigrants come and bring their languages.
Larry King: Is that an issue you disagree with your husband? He says it should be sung in English.
Mrs. Bush: I think it should be sung in English, of course.

 

Laura Welch Bush

 

The film has written and spoken dialogue in twenty-five languages-English, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Latin, Hebrew, necrotic Egyptian ... and it has written calligraphic text on paper, wood, and flesh, on flat and curved surfaces, vertically and horizontally, on both living and dead flesh, in neon, on screens, in projection, as sub-title, inter-title, and sur-title, as High Art and low art, as advertisement and banker's check and registration plate, on photograph, on blackboard, as letter correspondence, as photocopy facsimile, and spoken, chanted, and sung, with and without music ... a mocking challenge. You want text? Cinema wants text? Cinema pretends to eschew text? Then we can give you text to mock that smug suggestion that cinema thinks it is pictures.

 

Peter Greenaway