Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine.

Music is ... A higher revelation than all Wisdom & Philosophy

I would rather write 10,000 notes than a single letter of the alphabet.

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. I would, perhaps, rather come to you and your people, than to many rich folk who display inward poverty.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

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

Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and cannot make a good soup.

It is my wish that you may have at better and freer life than I have had. Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience; this was what upheld me in time of misery.

I shall seize fate by the throat.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have admit to yourself your own errors.

If once he has got the right fingering, plays in good time, with the notes fairly correct, then only pull him up about the rendering; and when he has arrived at that stage, don’t let him stop for the sake of small faults, but point them out to him when he has played the piece through. . . I have always adopted this plan; it soon forms musicians which, after all, is one of the first aims of art and it gives less trouble both to master and pupil.

Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est.(Applaud, my friends, the comedy is

Applaud my friends, the comedy is over...[on his death bed]

Whoever tells a lie is not pure of heart, and such a person can not cook a clean soup.

I like your opera - I think I will set it to music

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

One must not hold one's self so divine as to be unwilling occasionally to make improvements in one's creations.