Great Throughts Treasury

"L'art unit tout le monde,?how much more the true artist!"

"Kings and Princes can create professors and counselors, and confer orders and decorations; but they cannot create great men, spirits that rise above the earthly rabble; these they cannot create, and therefore they are to be respected."

"Let all that is called life be offered to the sublime and become a sanctuary of art. Let me live, even through artificial means, so they can be found."

"Like the State, each man must have his own constitution."

"Leave operas and all else alone, write only for your orphan, and then a cowl to close this unhappy life."

"Live alone in your art! Restricted though you be by your defective sense, this is still the only existence for you."

"Let your conduct always be amiable; through art and science the best and noblest of men are bound together and your future vocation will not exclude you."

"Look, my dear Ries; these are the great connoisseurs who affect to be able to judge of any piece of music so correctly and keenly. Give them but the name of their favorite,?they need no more!"

"Love demands all, and has a right to all."

"Man, help yourself!"

"Man's humility towards man pains me; and yet when I consider myself in connection with the universe, what am I and what is he whom we call the greatest? And yet here, again, lies the divine element in man."

"Many a vigorous and unconsidered word drops from my mouth, for which reason I am considered mad."

"Many assert that every minor piece must end in the minor. Nego! On the contrary I find that in the soft scales the major third at the close has a glorious and uncommonly quieting effect. Joy follows sorrow, sunshine?rain. It affects me as if I were looking up to the silvery glistering of the evening star."

"Men are not only together when they are with each other; even the distant and the dead live with us."

"Mentally I often frame an answer, but when I come to write it down I generally throw the pen aside, since I am not able to write what I feel."

"Most people are touched by anything good; but they do not partake of the artist's nature; artists are ardent, they do not weep."

"Morality is the strength of men who distinguish themselves over others, and it is mine."

"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit."

"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, the wine which inspires one to new generative processes."

"Music is a revelation; a revelation loftier than all wisdom and all philosophy."

"Music - 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 the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents."

"Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks, and invents."

"Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear."

"Must it be? It must be."

"My dear boy, the startling effects which many credit to the natural genius of the composer, are often achieved with the greatest ease by the use and resolution of the diminished seventh chords."

"Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken."

"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life."

"My defective hearing appeared everywhere before me like a ghost; I fled from the presence of men, was obliged to appear to be a misanthrope although I am so little such."

"My fatherland, the beautiful locality in which I saw the light of the world, appears before me vividly and just as beautiful as when I left you; I shall count it the happiest experience of my life when I shall again be able to see you, and greet our Father Rhine."

"My heart is full of many things... there are moments when I feel that speech is nothing after all."

"My 'Fidelio' was not understood by the public, but I know that it will yet be appreciated; for though I am well aware of the value of my 'Fidelio' I know just as well that the symphony is my real element. When sounds ring in me I always hear the full orchestra; I can ask anything of instrumentalists, but when writing for the voice I must continually ask myself: 'Can that be sung?'"

"My misfortune is doubly painful to me because it will result in my being misunderstood. For me there can be no recreation in the company of others, no intelligent conversation, no exchange of information with peers; only the most pressing needs can make me venture into society. I am obliged to live like an outcast."

"My miserable hearing does not trouble me here. In the country it seems as if every tree said to me: 'Holy! holy!' Who can give complete expression to the ecstasy of the woods! O, the sweet stillness of the woods!"

"My motto is always: nulla die sine linea; and if I permit the muse to go to sleep it is only that she may awake strengthened."

"My nobility is here, and here (pointing to his heart and head)."

"Nature knows no quiescence; and true art walks with her hand in hand; her sister?from whom heaven forefend us!?is called artificiality."

"My thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved I can only live wholly with you or not at all. Be calm my life, my all. Only by calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together. Oh continue to love me, never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved. Ever Thine. Ever Mine. Ever Yours."

"Nature is a glorious school for the heart! It is well; I shall be a scholar in this school and bring an eager heart to her instruction. Here I shall learn wisdom, the only wisdom that is free from disgust; here I shall learn to know God and find a foretaste of heaven in His knowledge. Among these occupations my earthly days shall flow peacefully along until I am accepted into that world where I shall no longer be a student, but a knower of wisdom."

"Never did my own music produce such an effect upon me; even now when I recall this work it still costs me a tear."

"Nature's weaknesses are nature's endowments; reason, the guide, must seek to lead and lessen them."

"Never forget the days I spent with you. Continue to be my friend, as you will always find me yours."

"Not a word about rest! I know of none except in sleep, and sorry enough am I that I am obliged to yield up more to it than formerly."

"Not Brook but Ocean should be his name."

"Nothing but art, cut to form like old-fashioned hoop-skirts. I never feel entirely well except when I am among scenes of unspoiled nature."

"Never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved."

"No devil can compel me to write only cadences of such a kind."

"No metronome at all! He who has sound feeling needs none, and he who has not will get no help from the metronome;?he'll run away with the orchestra anyway."

"No friend have I. I must live by myself alone; but I know well that God is nearer to me than others in my art, so I will walk fearlessly with Him."

"No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist."