Great Throughts Treasury

"I must despise the world which does not know that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy."

"What is to reach the heart must come from above, if it does not come thence, it will be nothing but notes - body without spirit."

"I want to seize fate by the throat. "

"Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman. "

"Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold. "

"We all make mistakes, but everyone makes different mistakes."

"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. Although the spirit be not master of that which it creates through music, yet it is blessed in this creation, which, like every creation of art, is mightier than the artist. "

"Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend."

"Music is... a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy."

"Music is a higher revelation than philosophy. "

"To play without passion is inexcusable!"

"A great poet is the most precious jewel of a nation."

"A little house here, so small as to yield one's self a little room,?only a few days in this divine Bruehl,?longing or desire, emancipation or fulfillment."

"A Requiem ought to be quiet music,?it needs no trump of doom; memories of the dead require no hubbub."

"A musician is also a poet; he also can feel himself transported by a pair of eyes into another and more beautiful world where greater souls make sport of him and set him right difficult tasks."

"A second and third generation recompenses me three and fourfold for the ill-will which I had to endure from my former contemporaries."

"Ah! it seemed impossible for me to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce; and so I prolonged this wretched existence."

"After all the fellow writes for money only. [about Walter Scott]"

"All things flowed clear and pure out of God. Though often darkly led to evil by passion, I returned, through penance and purification to the pure fountain,?to God,?and to your art. In this I was never impelled by selfishness; may it always be so. The trees bend low under the weight of fruit, the clouds descend when they are filled with salutary rains, and the benefactors of humanity are not puffed up by their wealth."

"All misfortune is mysterious and greatest when viewed alone; discussed with others it seems more endurable because one becomes entirely familiar with the things one dreads, and feels as if one had overcome it."

"All week long I had to suffer and endure like a saint. Away with this rabble! What a reproach to our civilization that we need what we despise and must always know it near!"

"Almighty One, In the woods I am blessed. Happy everyone in the woods. Every tree speaks through Thee."

"Always the same old story: the Germans cannot put together a good libretto."

"Already in bed, the idea to urge you my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then again sadly. The fates waiting if will hear us."

"Always place the hands at the key-board so that the fingers cannot be raised higher than is necessary; only in this way is it possible to produce a singing tone."

"Among all the composers alive Cherubini is the most worthy of respect. I am in complete agreement, too, with his conception of the 'Requiem,' and if ever I come to write one I shall take note of many things."

"Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and cannot make a good soup."

"Am I not a true friend? Why do you conceal your necessities from me? No friend of mine must suffer so long as I have anything."

"Apollo and the muses will not yet permit me to be delivered over to the grim skeleton, for I owe them so much, and I must, on any departure for the Elysian Fields, leave behind me all that the spirit has inspired and commanded to be finished."

"Art, the persecuted one, always finds an asylum. Did not Daedalus, shut up in the labyrinth, invent the wings which carried him out into the open air? O, I shall find them, too, these wings!"

"Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?"

"Applaud my friends, the comedy is over... [on his death bed]"

"Artists are fiery, they do not weep!"

"As a rule, in the case of these gentlemen, all reason and feeling are generally lost in the nimbleness of their fingers."

"As for me I prefer to set Homer, Klopstock, Schiller, to music; if it is difficult to do, these immortal poets at least deserve it."

"As is my habit, the pianoforte part of the concerto (op. 19) was not written out in the score; I have just written it, wherefore, in order to expedite matters, you receive it in my not too legible handwriting."

"As regards me, great heavens! my dominion is in the air; the tones whirl like the wind, and often there is a like whirl in my soul."

"Be convinced that mankind, even in your case, will always be sacred to me."

"Beethoven can write music, thank God - but he can do nothing else on earth."

"Blessed is he who has overcome all passions and then proceeds energetically to perform his duties under all circumstances careless of success! Let the motive lie in the deed, not in the outcome. Be not one of those whose spring of action is the hope of reward. Do not let your life pass in inactivity. Be industrious, do your duty, banish all thoughts as to the results, be they good or evil; for such equanimity is attention to intellectual things. Seek an asylum only in Wisdom; for he who is wretched and unhappy is so only in consequence of things. The truly wise man does not concern himself with the good and evil of this world. Therefore endeavor diligently to preserve this use of your reason?for in the affairs of this world, such a use is a precious art."

"Camillus, if I am not mistaken, was the name of the Roman who drove the wicked Gauls from Rome. At such a cost I would also take the name if I could drive them wherever I found them to where they belong."

"Bruhl, at 'The Lamb'?how lovely to see my native country again!"

"Can you lend me the 'Theory of Colors' for a few weeks? It is an important work. His last things are insipid."

"Carried too far, all delineation in instrumental music loses in efficiency."

"Concerning myself nothing,?that is, from nothing nothing."

"Compelled to contemplate a lasting malady, born with an ardent and lively temperament, susceptible to the diversions of society, I was obliged at an early date to isolate myself and live a life of solitude."

"Candidly I am not a friend of Allegri di bravura and such, since they do nothing but promote mechanism."

"Compelled to be a philosopher as early as my 28th year;?it is not an easy matter,?more difficult for the artist than any other man."

"Continue to translate yourself to the heaven of art; there is no more undisturbed, unmixed, purer happiness than may thus be attained."

"Continue, Your Royal Highness, to write down briefly your occasional ideas while at the pianoforte. For this a little table alongside the pianoforte is necessary. By this means not only is the fancy strengthened, but one learns to hold fast in a moment the most remote conceptions. It is also necessary to compose without the pianoforte; say often a simple chord melody, with simple harmonies, then figurate according to the rules of counterpoint, and beyond them; this will give Y. R. H. no headache, but, on the contrary, feeling yourself thus in the midst of art, a great pleasure."