composer Quotes

Never shall I forget the time I spent with you. Please continue to be my friend, as you will always find me yours.

• 356
• friends

I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness.

• 189
• happiness

Tradition is not to preserve the ashes, but to pass on the fire.

• 168
• tradition

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

• 144
• music

Beware of missing chances; otherwise it may be altogether too late some day.

• 105
• chances

To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.

• 95
• time

. . . colors like a flourish of trumpets or pianissimo on the violin, great, calm, oscillating, splintered surgances . . . . Is this not form?

• 76
• Violins

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

• 60
• between

Music is the space between the notes.

• 50
• Music

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

• 33
• music

The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.

• 31
• aim

Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.

• 31
• Sin

Art is the most beautiful of all lies.

• 25
• art

It's not what your are, it's what you don't become that hurts.

• 25
• Regret

You may have the universe if I may have Italy.

• 24
• italy

Joy is not in things; it is in us

• 23
• inspirational

Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience.

• 22
• alone

No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist.

• 20
• Art

A beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn.

• 19
• beautiful

There are two sides to every question: my side and the wrong side.

• 18
• Pride

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

• 18
• Music

Life is a lot like jazz... it's best when you improvise.

• 15
• life

If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon.

• 15
• humor

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist.

• 15
• art

For the past ten years I have had no financial problems.

• 14
• financial

Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour.

• 14
• awful

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.

• 13
• anguish

I want to do nothing chic, I want to have ideas before beginning a piece.

• 12
• beginning

Love forbids you not to love.

• 12
• forbids

I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry.

• 12
• poetry

Inspiration is an awakening, a quickening of all man's faculties, and it is manifested in all high artistic achievements.

• 11
• achievements

When I was young, I was told: 'You'll see, when you're fifty.' I am fifty and I haven't seen a thing.

• 11
• fifty

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.

• 11
• Insanity

People come to music to seek oblivion: is that not also a form of deception?

• 10
• come

I worked hard. Anyone who works as hard as I did can achieve the same results.

• 10
• achieve

When I wished to sing of love it turned to sorrow. And when I wished to sing of sorrow it was transformed for me into love.

• 10
• Music

Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.

• 10
• Music

Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of being?

• 10
• Love

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.

• 10
• Beauty

Musical ideas sprang to my mind like a flight of butterflies, and all I had to do was to stretch out my hand to catch them.

• 9
• butterflies

Where there is devotional music, God is always at hand with His gracious presence.

• 9
• devotional

Every time I look at you I get a fierce desire to be lonesome.

• 9
• Loneliness

Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.

• 8
• inspirational

I love music passionately. And because I love it I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it.

• 8
• barren

Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.

• 8
• arithmetic

Every great inspiration is but an experiment.

• 8
• experiment

I could compare my music to white light which contains all colours. Only a prism can divide the colours and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener.

• 8
• appear

Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever been put up to a critic.

• 8
• attention

The end of all good music is to affect the soul.

• 7
• affect

If I were to agree to write the music for your beautiful poem, it would tie your poem up for some years as I have agreements and obligations which I must respect.

• 7
• agree