Ludwig van Beethoven Quotes
Ludwig van Beethoven offers bold, heartfelt reflections on music, art, and emotion that inspire anyone seeking creative courage.
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I want to seize fate by the throat.
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There ought to be but one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art-works, and from which he could carry away whatever he needed. As it is, one must be half a tradesman.
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Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?
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The world is a king, and like a king, desires flattery in return for favor; but true art is selfish and perverse - it will not submit to the mold of flattery.
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Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est. (Applaud, my friends, the comedy is over.)
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Ich werde im Himmel horen! (I will hear in heaven!)
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The day-to-day exhausted me!
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Muss es sein? Es muss sein.
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Another equally true saying of Schumann is that, compared with Beethoven, Schubert is as a woman to a man. For it must be confessed that one's attitudes towards him is almost always that of sympathy, attraction, and love, rarely that of embarrassment or fear. Here and there only, as in the Rosamund B minor Entr'acte, or the Finale of the 10th symphony, does he compel his listeners with an irrestistible power; and yet how different is this compulsion from the strong, fierce, merciless coercion, with which Beethoven forces you along, and bows and bends you to his will.
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When his friends, says Czerny, speak to him of his youthful renown, he replies: 'Ah, nonsense! I have never thought of writing for renown and glory. What I have in my heart must out; that is why I write.'
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You are going to Vienna in fulfillment of your long-frustrated wishes. The Genius of Mozart is mourning and weeping over the death of her pupil. She has found a refuge but no occupation with the inexhaustible Haydn; through him she wishes to form a union with another. With the help of assiduous labor you shall receive Mozart's spirit from Haydn's hands.
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Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.
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A colossus beyond the grasp of most mortals, with his totally uncompromising power, his unsensual and uningratiating way with music as with people.
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Anyone who understands my music will never be unhappy again.
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Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and cannot make a good soup.
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Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.
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Do you think I worry about your lousy fiddle when the spirit moves me?
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I can't think about your miserable violin when I am speaking to my God!
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Music is........ a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.
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Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.
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Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.
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Never shall I forget the time I spent with you. Please continue to be my friend, as you will always find me yours.
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Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.
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Only the pure in heart can make a good soup.
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Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience.
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The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, 'Thus far and no farther.'
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There lies somehing revolutionary in the music.
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This [pointing to his head] and this [pointing to his heart] is my nobility.
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Thus Fate knocks the door.
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To sing a wrong note is insignificant, but to sing without passion is unforgivable.
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What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and always will be thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven.
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My music is music about music.
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We mortals with immortal minds are only born for sufferings and joys, and one could almost say that the most excellent receive joy through sufferings.
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When somewhat at a distance, I cannot hear the high tones of instruments, voices. In speaking, it is not surprising that there are people who have never noticed it, for as a rule I am absent-minded, and they account for it in that way.
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Strange, I feel as if up to now I had written no more than a few notes.
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After Rossini dies, who will be there to promote his music?
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But what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone standing next to me heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life - it was only my art that held me back.
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In the world of art, as in the whole of creation, freedom and progress are the main objectives.
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I despise a world which does not feel that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.
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Off with you! You're a happy fellow, for you'll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that!
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Don't only practise your art, but force your way into its secrets.
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There are and always will be thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven!
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To me the highest thing, after God, is my honor.
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The amount of money one needs is terrifying...
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Artists who have won fame are often embarrassed by it; thus their first works are often their best.
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Whoever tells a lie is not pure of heart, and such a person can not cook a clean soup.
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Recommend virtue to your children, that alone - not wealth - can give happiness. It upholds in adversity and the thought of it and my art prevents me from putting an end to my life.
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Do you think I give a damn about your and your pathetic violin?
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What will be the judgment a century hence concerning the lorded works of our favorite composers today? Inasmuch as nearly everything is subject to the changes of time, and - more's the pity- the fashions of time, only that which is good and true will endure like a rock and no wanton hand will ever venture to defile it. Then, let every man do that which is right, strive with all his might towards the goal which can never be obtained, develop to the last breath the gifts with which the gracious Creator has endowed him, and never cease to learn. For life is short, art eternal.
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It is my belief one should not belittle the artist; while, however glorious his fame may seem, his time on Mount Olympus as an honourable guest of Zeus is short. It's a pity, but all too eager will the common folk drag him from this etherial heights to the low and trodden earth.
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Music is the mediator between the life of the senses and the life of the spirit.
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I must confess that I lead a miserable life. For almost two years, I have ceased to attend any social functions, just because I find it impossible to say to people, 'I am deaf.' If I had any other profession, I might be able to cope with my infirmity; but in my profession, it is a terrible handicap.
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Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.
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The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.
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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.
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I know of no more sacred duty than to rear and educate a child.
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There ought to be an artistic depot where the artist need only hand in his artwork in order to receive what he asks for. As things are, one must be half a business man, and how can one understand - good heavens! - that's what I really call troublesome.
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From the glow of enthusiasm I let the melody escape. I pursue it. Breathless I catch up with it. It flies again, it disappears, it plunges into a chaos of diverse emotions. I catch it again, I seize it, I embrace it with delight... I multiply it by modulations, and at last I triumph in the first theme. There is the whole symphony.
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To play without passion is inexcusable!