“Recommend Virtue to your children; that alone, and not wealth, can ensure happiness. I speak from experience. It was Virtue alone which sustained me in my misery; I have to thank her and Art for not having ended my life by suicide.”
— Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 (trans. Lady Grace Wallace, 1866), Vol. 1 (1802)
“Be a doctor! Learn to dissect! Help in horrible operations! Bury myself in the hideous realities of hospitals, wounds, and death, when I might tread the clouds with the immortals!--when music and poetry wooed me with open arms and divine songs.”
— Hector Berlioz, The Life of Hector Berlioz as Written by Himself in His Letters and Memoirs (trans. Katharine F. Boult, 1903) (1821)
“The aim and endeavor of every true artist must be to acquire a position in which he can occupy himself exclusively with the accomplishment of great works, undisturbed by other avocations or by considerations of economy.”
— Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 (trans. Lady Grace Wallace, 1866), Vol. 1 (1808)
“Nay, I will live--live for music--the highest thing in life except true love! Both make me utterly miserable but at least I shall have lived!”
— Hector Berlioz, The Life of Hector Berlioz as Written by Himself in His Letters and Memoirs (trans. Katharine F. Boult, 1903) (1829)
“I am, as ever, wholly devoted to my Muse, who constitutes the sole happiness of my life, and I toil and act for others as I best can.”
— Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 (trans. Lady Grace Wallace, 1866), Vol. 2 (1822)
“Which power raises man the higher? Love or Music? It is a great question. It seems to me that one might say this: "Love cannot give an idea of music, but music can give an idea of love--why separate them?" They are the twin wings of the soul.”
— Hector Berlioz, The Life of Hector Berlioz as Written by Himself in His Letters and Memoirs (trans. Katharine F. Boult, 1903) (1864)
“The laws of morals are those of art.”
— Robert Schumann, Advice to Young Musicians / Musikalische Haus- und Lebensregeln (trans. Henry Hugo Pierson, 1860) (1848)
“This gave the death-blow to my promise; music claimed me for her own.”
— Hector Berlioz, The Life of Hector Berlioz as Written by Himself in His Letters and Memoirs (trans. Katharine F. Boult, 1903) (1822)
“it is rather for me to thank Him who enables me to render my art occasionally useful to others.”
— Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 (trans. Lady Grace Wallace, 1866), Vol. 1 (1812)
“For me there is no pleasure so great as to promote and to pursue my art.”
— Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 (trans. Lady Grace Wallace, 1866), Vol. 1 (1800)
“I am far happier when I have something to compose, which is my chief delight and passion”
— Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vol. 1 (trans. Lady Grace Wallace, 1865) (1777)
“The intellectual realm is the most precious in my eyes, and far above all temporal and spiritual monarchies.”
— Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 (trans. Lady Grace Wallace, 1866), Vol. 1 (1814)
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