Trumpets are musical instruments that were first created in 1500 BC.
Since this instrument has been around for such a long time, there have also been many sayings about its tune and the emotions that it invokes. Trumpets also form a great part of jazz music and there is a large group of people around the world that loves dancing to the melodies of this wind instrument.
Many musicians have become famous across the world because of their mastery of playing this instrument. At the same time, many authors and poets such as John Donne and William Shakespeare have found inspiration through their sound. Keep reading to learn some of the things that have been said about trumpets.
Famous Trumpet Quotes
Here are some iconic quotes that famous personalities had to say about this instrument.
“No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.”
- Agnes de Mille.
“After I learned the piano, I went on to learn percussion, the tuba, b-flat baritone, French horn, trombone, trumpet, most of the instruments in the orchestra. Trumpet was my instrument.”
- Voltaire.
“My heart leaps at the trumpet's voice.”
- Joseph Addison.
“Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine, I look right into the heart of good old New Orleans. It has given me something to live for.”
- Louis Armstrong.
“There are those who wrap themselves in flags and blow the tinny trumpet of patriotism as a means of fooling the people.”
- George Galloway.
“At the round earth's imagined corners, blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go, All whom the flood did, and fire shall, o'erthrow, All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain...”
- 'Holy Sonnet 7', John Donne.
“Prayers are like the powerful sounds of trumpets. When God's people come together and pray, the walls that challenge progress will fall.”
- Ellen J. Barrier.
“There was a discordant hum of human voices! There was a loud blast as of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back!
An outstretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was that of General Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.”
- 'The Complete Stories and Poems', Edgar Allan Poe.
Trumpet Quotes About Music
Here are quotes that associate trumpets with music and life in general.
“Life is like a trumpet - if you don't put anything into it, you don't get anything out of it.”
- William Christopher Handy.
“We never blow to the horn. We blow through the horn. We never blow up to a note, we blow out to it.”
- Don Jacoby.
“To play the trumpet well, a musician can not let more than a few days pass without practicing.”
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
“The trumpet does not more stun you by its loudness, than a whisper teases you by its provoking inaudibility.”
- Charles Lamb.
“Tonight I heard Louis's horn. My father heard it, too. The wind was right, and I could hear the notes of taps, just as darkness fell. There is nothing in all the world I like better than the trumpet of the swan.”
- E.B. White.
“Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.”
- Miles Davis.
“I'm not an amazing trumpet player. It's mostly smoke and mirrors. You shake the trumpet and it starts to vibrate in a ridiculous drunken way, or you flop notes at the right time and you don't have to play stuff that would take seven years to learn.”
- Zach Condon.
“What [Louis Armstrong] does is real, and true, and honest, and simple, and even noble. Every time this man puts his trumpet to his lips, even if only to practice three notes, he does it with his whole soul.”
- Leonard Bernstein.
“There’s always people looking the other way when the miracles take place, people who want only a good night’s sleep when the stars are dancing, comets falling, the angels leaning low out of midnight with their trumpets, their cantatas of longing.”
- 'The Salt Point', Paul Russell.
“The majority of people who keel over dead at concerts are killed by a long trumpet passage.”
- Garrison Keillor.
“Sometimes it's an external approach where one can learn the skills required, let's say, learn to play the trumpet and in that process other things happen. It's magical: through the process of practicing four hours a day you start focusing on emotion and when you pick up the trumpet it's filled with feeling.”
- Richard Gere.
“He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat/ He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat/ Oh! be swift my soul to answer him, be jubilant my feet!/ Our God is marching on.”
- 'Battle Hymn of the Republic', Julia Ward Howe.
“I've never heard anything Wynton [Marsalis] played sound like it meant anything at all. Wynton has no voice and no presence. His music sounds like a talented high-school trumpet player to me... he's jazzy the same way someone who drives a BMW is sporty.”
- Keith Jarrett.
Fascinating Trumpet Quotes
(The Miles Davis Quintet was a popular jazz band of the '60s.)
Let's have a look at some of the most fascinating quotes written about Trumpets.
“Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.”
- Thomas Mann
"Please join us and be with us on this very night,
As the soul of our beloved joins you in flight.
We pray that you send this soul embraced in your lovely wings,
During his journey may he hear harps, and trumpets and strings.”
- 'The Book Of Simple Human Truths', Molly Friedenfeld.
“The hardest part of playing the trumpet is the physical act of making the sound.”
- Tom Harrell.
“There may be no trumpet sound or loud applause when we make a right decision, just a calm sense of resolution and peace.”
- Gloria Gaither.
“Affectation is fond of making a greater show than reality… Nature and truth have never learned to blow the trumpet, and never will.”
- Lydia M. Child.
“When I hear Bobby (Shew) I don't hear his trumpet playing-I can't stand trumpet playing- his music is what reaches me.” - Marvin Stamm.
“We are Christians and Catholics not because we worship a key, but because we have passed a door and felt the wind that is the trumpet of liberty blow over the land of the living.”
- Gilbert K. Chesterton.
“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.”
- Theodore Hesburgh.
“He who sounds his own trumpet will soon find plenty to laugh at him.”
- Publilius Syrus.
“It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, 'the greatest', but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.”
- Sydney J. Harris.
Interesting Trumpet Quotes
Here are some famous and amusing quotes about trumpets made by famous personalities.
“Sound trumpets! Let our bloody colours wave! And either victory, or else a grave.”
- William Shakespeare.
“Buy on the cannons and sell on the trumpets.”
- John Neff.
“At the round earth's imagined corners, blow your trumpets, angels.”
- John Donne.
“Trumpet players see each other, and it's like we're getting ready to square off or get into a fight or something.”
- Wynton Marsalis.
“One may imagine that a man who blew the trumpet for his living would be glad to play the violin for his amusement.”
- Winston Churchill.
“I didn't want to get that ring around my lips from practicing the trumpet, because I thought the girls wouldn't like me. So I never practiced.”
- Wynton Marsalis.
“The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide.”
- John Keats.
“[Louis Armstrong] could play a trumpet like nobody else, then put it down and sing a song like no one else could.”
- Eddie Condon.
