Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

  • Music is 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.
  • Whoever tells a lie is not pure of heart, and such a person can not cook a clean soup.
  • To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.
  • It seemed unthinkable for me to leave the world forever before I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce.
  • There are and always will be thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven!
  • Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.
  • I like your opera – I think I will set it to music.
  • I despise a world which does not feel that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.