Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Someone, please delete this spurious quotation misattributed to Plato in the Wordsworth Dictionary of Musical Quotations (1991), p. 45. It does not exist in the writings of Plato. See HERE and HERE.

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination
and life to everything.”

Hold off on that deletion for a while. Although other researchers have not been able to find that quotation in the writings of Plato, there was an academic in 1891 who attributed it to Plato. In the book Music in Its Relation to Intellectual Life, by Dr. Frédéric Lewis Ritter of Vassar University (1891), p. 48. He writes:

"Music," says Plato, "gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, trying to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, just and beautiful, of him which it is the invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form."

Exactly where in Plato's writings he finds that, Ritter doesn't say.