Fine music without devotion is but a splendid garment upon a corpse.
Interpretation
Music requires emotional engagement to have true value; without devotion, it is meaningless.
In this quote, Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the importance of emotional engagement and devotion in music. While music may possess beauty and skill, devoid of genuine passion and dedication, it loses its significance, rendering it akin to mere decoration on something lifeless. This metaphor highlights that true art comes to life only when infused with heartfelt commitment.
In practice
In a speech about the significance of the arts at a community event.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
All you can do is show people...You tell stories that are true and compelling.
When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.
Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used.
So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.
I haven't been in the Louvre for twenty years. It doesn't interest me because I have these doubts about the value of the judgments which decided that all these pictures should be presented to the Louvre instead of others which weren't even considered.
Drawing is the artist's most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.