Great Throughts Treasury

"Habit may depreciate the most brilliant talents."

"He who is above,?O, He is, and without Him there is nothing."

"Handel is the unattained master of all masters. Go and learn from him how to achieve vast effects with simple means."

"Had I not read somewhere that it is not pending man to part voluntarily from his life so long as there is a good deed which he can perform, I should long since have been no more, and by my own hand. O, how beautiful life is, but in my case it is poisoned."

"Handel is the greatest composer who ever lived. I would bare my head and kneel at his grave."

"He is a base man who does not know how to die; I knew it as a boy of fifteen."

"Hate reacts on those who nourish it."

"He who is afflicted with a malady which he cannot alter, but which gradually brings him nearer and nearer to death, without which he would have lived longer, ought to reflect that murder or another cause might have killed him even more quickly."

"Heaven rules over the destiny of men and monsters (literally, human and inhuman beings), and so it will guide me, too, to the better things of life."

"He, too, then, is nothing better than an ordinary man! Now he will trample on all human rights only to humor his ambition; he will place himself above all others,?become a tyrant!"

"Heaven forbid that I should take a journal in which sport is made of the manes of such a revered one."

"His name ought not to be Bach (brook), but ocean, because of his inexhaustible wealth of tonal combinations and harmonies"

"Hope nourishes me; it nourishes half the world, and has been my neighbor all my life, else what had become of me!"

"How eagerly mankind withdraws from the poor artist what it has once given him;?and Zeus, from whom one might ask an invitation to sup on ambrosia, lives no longer."

"How great was the humiliation when one who stood beside me heard the distant sound of a shepherd's pipe, and I heard nothing; or heard the shepherd singing, and I heard nothing. Such experiences brought me to the verge of despair;?but little more and I should have put an end to my life. Art, art alone deterred me."

"I always have a picture in my mind when composing, and follow its lines."

"I am but little satisfied with my works thus far; from today I shall adopt a new course."

"I am free from all small vanities. Only in the divine art is the lever which gives me power to sacrifice the best part of my life to the celestial muses."

"How happy I am to be able to wander among bushes and herbs, under trees and over rocks; no man can love the country as I love it. Woods, trees and rocks send back the echo that man desires."

"How stupidity and wretchedness always go in pairs! [Beethoven was greatly vexed by his servants.]"

"I am not in the habit of rewriting my compositions. I never did it because I am profoundly convinced that every change of detail changes the character of the whole."

"I am not bad; hot blood is my wickedness, my crime is youthfulness. I am not bad, really not bad; even though wild surges often accuse my heart, it still is good. To do good wherever we can, to love liberty above all things, and never to deny truth though it be at the throne itself.?Think occasionally of the friend who honors you."

"I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits."

"I believe that so long as the Austrian has his brown beer and sausage he will not revolt."

"I am that which is. I am all that was, that is, and that shall be. No mortal man has ever lifted the veil of me. He is solely of himself, and to this Only One all things owe their existence."

"I can have no intercourse, and do not want to have any, with persons who are not willing to believe in me because I have not yet made a wide reputation."

"I can live only wholly with you or not at all"

"I carry my thoughts about me for a long time, often a very long time, before I write them down; meanwhile my memory is so faithful that I am sure never to forget, not even in years, a theme that has once occurred to me. I change many things, discard, and try again until I am satisfied. Then, however, there begins in my head the development in every direction, and, in as much as I know exactly what I want, the fundamental idea never deserts me,?it arises before me, grows,?I see and hear the picture in all its extent and dimensions stand before my mind like a cast, and there remains for me nothing but the labor of writing it down, which is quickly accomplished when I have the time, for I sometimes take up other work, but never to the confusion of one with the other."

"I despise a world which does not feel that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy"

"I change many things, discard others, and try again and again until I am satisfied. Then, in my head, I begin to elaborate the work in its breadth, its narrowness, its height, its depth... I hear and see the image in front of me from every angle, as if it had been cast, and only the labor of writing it down remains."

"I do not write what I most desire to, but that which I need to because of money. But this is not saying that I write only for money. When the present period is past, I hope at last to write that which is the highest thing for me as well as art,?'Faust.'"

"I do not desire that you shall esteem me greater as an artist, but better and more perfect as a man; when the condition of our country is somewhat better, then my art shall be devoted to the welfare of the poor."

"I have always reckoned myself among the greatest admirers of Mozart, and shall do so till the day of my death."

"I have emptied a cup of bitter suffering and already won martyrdom in art through the kindness of art's disciples and my art associates."

"I don't want to know anything about your system of ethics. Strength is the morality of the man who stands out from the rest, and it is mine."

"I have often cursed my existence; Plutarch taught me resignation. I shall, if possible, defy Fate, though there will be hours in my life when I shall be the most miserable of God's creatures. Resignation! What a wretched resort; yet it is the only one left me!"

"I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must out; that is the reason why I compose."

"I have the gift to conceal my sensitiveness touching a multitude of things; but when I am provoked at a moment when I am more sensitive than usual to anger, I burst out more violently than anybody else."

"I haven't a single friend; I must live alone. But well I know that God is nearer to me than to the others of my art; I associate with Him without fear, I have always recognized and understood Him, and I have no fear for my music,?it can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it must become free from all the miseries that the others drag with them."

"I have the more turned my gaze upwards; but for our own sakes and for others we are obliged to turn our attention sometimes to lower things; this, too, is a part of human destiny."

"I hope still to bring a few large works into the world, and then, like an old child, to end my earthly career somewhere among good people."

"I know the text is extremely bad, but after one has conceived an entity out of even a bad text, it is difficult to make changes in details without disturbing the unity. If it is a single word, on which occasionally great weight is laid, it must be permitted to stand. He is a bad author who cannot, or will not try to make something as good as possible; if this is not the case petty changes will certainly not improve the whole."

"I know no more sacred duty than to rear and educate a child."

"I love a tree more than a man."

"I love most the realm of mind which, to me, is the highest of all spiritual and temporal monarchies."

"I may say that I live a wretched existence. For almost two years I have avoided all social gatherings because it is impossible for me to tell the people I am deaf. If my vocation were anything else it might be more endurable, but under the circumstances the condition is terrible; besides what would my enemies say,?they are not few in number! To give you an idea of this singular deafness let me tell you that in the theatre I must lean over close to the orchestra in order to understand the actor; if I am a little remote from them I do not hear the high tones of instruments and voices; it is remarkable that there are persons who have not observed it, but because I am generally absent-minded my conduct is ascribed to that."

"I must have a confidant at my side lest life become a burden."

"I must abandon wholly the fond hope, which I brought hither, to be cured at least in a degree. As the fallen autumn leaves have withered, so are now my hopes blighted. I depart in almost the same condition in which I came; even the lofty courage which often animated me in the beautiful days of summer has disappeared."

"I love straightforwardness and uprightness, and believe that the artist ought not to be belittled; for, alas! brilliant as fame is externally, it is not always the privilege of the artist to be Jupiter's guest on Olympus all the time. Unfortunately vulgar humanity drags him down only too often and too rudely from the pure upper ether."

"I must accustom myself to think out at once the whole, as soon as it shows itself, with all the voices, in my head."