The idea of a cosmic music belongs to the Pythagorean tradition, but these words do not. Pythagoras wrote nothing, and no ancient text records the sentence. The earliest printing found is an epigraph in Guy Murchie’s Music of the Spheres (1961), signed only “Pythagoras 5th century B.C.” with no work or translation named.
“There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres” Popularly attributed to Pythagoras, but no ancient source contains it. Earliest printing found: an epigraph in Guy Murchie, Music of the Spheres (Houghton Mifflin, 1961). Via Quotle.info
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Evoking the world of Pythagoras — Greek philosopher of Samos and Croton. Theme: "There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Provenance
Where the words actually surface
Work
Music of the Spheres
Author
Guy Murchie (1907–1997), American journalist and science writer
Published
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961
Placement
Epigraph printed just before the acknowledgments, credited “Pythagoras 5th century B.C.”
There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacings of the spheres. — Pythagoras, 5th century B.C.
1961 epigraph
Pieced together from overlapping Internet Archive OCR snippets of the 1961 Houghton Mifflin printing, so the punctuation and capitalization of the credit line may differ from the page. Murchie wrote “spacings”; the singular “spacing” that is now common appears by 1964.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says plainly that “Pythagoras wrote nothing, nor were there any detailed accounts of his thought written by contemporaries.” It also doubts that he “thought in terms of spheres” at all. SEP: Pythagoras ↗
In Guy Murchie’s Music of the Spheres (Houghton Mifflin, 1961), the line is an epigraph signed “Pythagoras 5th century B.C.,” immediately followed by the acknowledgments. This is the earliest printing found in a full-text search of the Internet Archive’s scanned books. Open Library search-inside results ↗
Wikiquote’s Pythagoras page gives the line no ancient source. It lists it only “as quoted in” two modern books: Murchie’s Music of the Spheres (1961) and The Mystery of Matter (1965), edited by Louise B. Young. Wikiquote: Pythagoras ↗
By 1964 the now-familiar singular form, “music in the spacing of the spheres,” credited “— Pythagoras,” appears in Evans G. Valens’s The Number of Things: Pythagoras, Geometry, and Humming Strings. Open Library search-inside results ↗
No ancient source or translation contains this English sentence, and its true author is unknown. The earliest printing found is in Guy Murchie’s Music of the Spheres (1961), a post-1931 book. Since we cannot tell whether Murchie wrote the line or copied it from somewhere else, we assert no copyright status.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
How Pythagoras got the credit
The line sounds like ancient wisdom, but the paper trail begins in a twentieth-century science book. Quotation dictionaries then repeated it with Pythagoras’s name and no source.
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The wordingPythagoras no writings survive
No text by Pythagoras exists to quote. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ↗ notes that “Pythagoras wrote nothing,” and no ancient report of his sayings contains this sentence.
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The 1961 epigraphGuy Murchie, Music of the Spheres earliest printing found
Murchie opens his popular-science book with the line, signed “Pythagoras 5th century B.C.,” and names no work or translation (Internet Archive scans via Open Library ↗). His wording is “spacings.”
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Quote collectionsLater anthologies repetition, not evidence
Later books repeated the line with Pythagoras’s name, including The Mystery of Matter (1965), edited by Louise B. Young. Wikiquote cites both of these modern books and no ancient one (Wikiquote ↗).
✓The Pythagorean tradition did imagine a music of the heavens, but this English sentence has no known ancient source. Its earliest printing found is a 1961 epigraph, and whoever wrote it, it was not Pythagoras in any surviving text. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ↗
Context
Why it sounds so Pythagorean
The line sums up a real ancient idea: the numerical ratios behind musical harmony might also govern the movements of the heavens. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ↗ describes how Pythagorean thought pictured a music of the heavens, which “in the later tradition developed into ‘the harmony of the spheres.’” It also cautions that “it is doubtful that Pythagoras himself thought in terms of spheres.”
Even the story of Pythagoras discovering the musical ratios is doubtful. The same entry calls the classic anecdotes “clearly false,” because the methods credited to him would not work. The neat, symmetrical English sentence is a modern way of packaging that tradition. It is not a saying handed down from antiquity.
It is doubtful that Pythagoras himself thought in terms of spheres.
spacing or spacings?
Murchie’s 1961 epigraph reads “music in the spacings of the spheres.” The singular “spacing,” the form most quote sites use today, appears by 1964 in Evans G. Valens’s The Number of Things (search-inside results ↗). Some later versions also join the two sentences with a comma.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
c. 570 – c. 490 BC · Greek philosopher of Samos and Croton
Pythagoras founded a way of life and a school of thought in Croton, in southern Italy. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, he wrote nothing, so everything credited to him comes from later reports. The “harmony of the spheres” was developed by the later Pythagorean tradition, and scholars doubt that Pythagoras himself “thought in terms of spheres.”
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest printing found
Guy Murchie, Music of the Spheres (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), front-matter epigraph credited to “Pythagoras 5th century B.C.” No ancient source or translation is known; Pythagoras left no writings.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres’?” Last verified 3 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/there-is-geometry-in-the-humming-of-the-strings-there-is/