An artist earns the right to call himself a creator only when he admits to himself that he is but an instrument.
The banjo am the instrument for me.
I will never again play anything that does not have social significance. We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we are master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we've been through.
God never intended for us to simply be the objects of His love. We are also called to be the instruments of that love in the lives of others.
I can play a lot of different instruments adequately but nothing really well.
I see God in the instruments and mechanisms that work reliably.
Of course it’s the apparently tranquil periods that deceive us. Though our instruments or our senses or our wits may not be able to see the processes that are leading toward these clusters of events, they’re happening. The star, the wheel, the butterfly—all are in a subtle state of unrest, waiting for the moment when some invisible mechanism signals that the time has come. Then the star explodes; the wheel makes poor men rich; the butterfly mates and dies.
I'm not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.
Those who have overcome self-will and become instruments to do God's work can accomplish tasks which are seemingly impossible, but they experience no feeling of self achievement. I now know myself to be a part of the infinite cosmos, not separate from other souls or God. My illusory self is dead; the real self controls the garment of clay and uses it for God's work.
We're approaching the end of a bloody century plagued by a terrible political invention, totalitarianism. Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy's enemies have refined their instruments of repression.
I have only been an instrument in the hands of Providence.
I didn't want to get attached to one guitar; I didn't want to have an instrument that was irreplaceable.
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence
I wish I played an instrument, but I could never decide which one, and I ended up playing nothing.
After I retired and came off the road, I gathered up all my musical instruments and suddenly, I wanted them all to be perfect.
My instrument is the studio. When I play my instrument, I'm creating music using the studio. All the other instruments serve it.
Sculpture is made with two instruments and some supports and pretty air.
I feel not a person but an instrument of destiny.
Books appear to be the most immediate instruments of speculative delight.
The ukulele is the instrument of peace.