Great Throughts Treasury

"I never fail to do my very best, and to do so with all my strength. Well, God will make all things right. I have a project in my head, for the success of which I daily pray to God. If it be His almighty will, it must come to pass; but, if not, I am quite contented. I shall then at all events have done my part."

"I never go to bed without thinking that the next day perhaps (if young as I am) I'm gone ...; and yet individual, everyone who knows me cannot say I'm sad or sorrow in my conversation..."

"I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings."

"I must give you a piece of intelligence that you perhaps already know ? namely, that the ungodly arch-villain Voltaire has died miserably like a dog ? just like a brute. That is his reward!"

"I should like to know for what reason idleness is so popular with many young people that it is impossible to dissuade them from it either by words or by chastisements."

"I really do not aim at any originality."

"I will gladly give lessons as a favor, particularly when I see that my student has talent, inclination, and anxiety to learn; but to be obliged to go to a house at a certain hour, or to have to wait at home for a pupil, is what I cannot do, no matter how much money it may bring me in. . . I am a composer and was born to be a Kapellmeister. I neither can nor ought to bury the talent for composition with which God in his goodness has so richly endowed me."

"If Germany, my beloved fatherland, of whom you know I am proud, will not accept me, then must I, in the name of God, again make France or England richer by one capable German; ? and to the shame of the German nation."

"In a dialogue, these things are natural enough, for a few words can be hurriedly said aside, but in an aria, where the words must be repeated, it has a bad effect; and even were this not the case, I should prefer an uninterrupted aria."

"If people could see into my heart, I should almost feel ashamed - all there is cold, cold as ice."

"If I were obliged to marry all the girls with whom I have jested I should have at least 200 wives."

"I write as a sow piddles."

"If only the whole world could feel the power of harmony."

"It is a great consolation for me to remember that the Lord, to whom I had drawn near in humble and child-like faith, has suffered and died for me, and that He will look on me in love and compassion."

"It is a mistake to think that the price of my art has become easy to me."

"Mozart exists, and will exist, eternally; divine Mozart - less a name, more a soul descending to us from the heavens, who appeared on this earth, stayed for a little over thirty years, and left it all the more rejuvenated, richer and happier for his appearance."

"It is hard to think of another composer who so perfectly marries form and passion."

"It is very difficult at present to find a good libretto for an opera. The old ones, which are the best, are not written in the modern style, and the new ones are all good for nothing; for poetry, which was the only thing of which France had reason to be proud, becomes every day worse, and poetry is the only thing which requires to be good here, for music they do not understand."

"Mozart is the highest, the culminating point that beauty has attained in the sphere of music."

"It is far easier to play a thing quickly than slowly; some notes may then be dropped without being observed. But is this genuine music?"

"Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."

"Mozart, prodigal heaven gave thee everything, grace and strength, abundance and moderation, perfect equilibrium."

"Music is my life and my life is music. Anyone who does not understand this is not worthy of God. I must give you a piece of intelligence that you perhaps already know ? namely, that the ungodly arch-villain Voltaire has died miserably like a dog ? just like a brute. That is his reward!"

"Music is my life and my life is music."

"Music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music."

"My dear sister! I?m amazed to discover that you can compose so delightfully. In a word, your Lied is beautiful. You must compose more often."

"Music, in even the most terrible situations, must never offend the ear but always remain a source of pleasure."

"Neither rejoice nor lament prematurely; for whatever may happen, all will be well if we only have health; for happiness exists--merely in the imagination."

"Now let the matter rest as it is, or as it may be, what avail useless speculations? What is to occur we do not know; still in so far we do! what God wills!"

"My fatherland has always the first claim on me."

"My great grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know the right moment to stop."

"Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, I hear them all at once. What a delight this is All"

"Nothing is more enjoyable than a quiet life and to obtain that one must be industrious."

"Passion, whether violent or not, must never be expressed to the point of exciting disgust, and... music, even in the most terrible situations, must never offend the ear."

"Patience and tranquility of mind contribute more to cure"

"Our riches, being in our brains, die with us... Unless of course someone chops off our head, in which case, we won't need them anyway."

"One must not make oneself cheap here -- that is a cardinal point -- or else one is done. Whoever is most impertinent has the best chance."

"People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to compositions as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times."

"Reflect also on this most undoubted truth, that we cannot do all we wish. We often think that such and such a thing would be very good, and another equally bad and evil, and yet if these things came to pass, we should sometimes learn that the very reverse was the case."

"She's only pretty in that she has two small black eyes and a good figure."

"Silence is very important. The silence between the notes are as important as the notes themselves."

"Sleep, those tiny slices of death, how i despise them!"

"Sleep the little slices of death, how I despise them Which Means sleep those tiny slices of death how I despise them."

"The best way to learn is through the powerful force of rhythm."

"Stay with me to-night; you must see me die. I have long had the taste of death on my tongue, I smell death, and who will stand by my Constanze, if you do not stay?"

"The Marriage of Figaro."

"The golden mean, the truth, is no longer recognized or valued. To win applause one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it, or so incomprehensible that it pleases simply because no sensible man can comprehend it."

"The most stimulating and encouraging thought is that you, dearest father, and my dear sister, are well, that I am an honest German, and that if I am not always permitted to talk I can think what I please; but that is all."

"The most necessary, most difficult and principal thing in music, that is time."

"The taste of death is upon my lips. I feel something that is not of this earth."