Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Quotes
1756–1791 Austria
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was an Austrian composer and musician.
Also known as: Amadeus Mozart, Mozart, Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
Random Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart quote
17 quotes
All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak—and speak in such a way that people will remember it.
Letter as published in The Letters of Mozart & His Family (1938)
Stay with me to-night; you must see me die. I have long had the taste of death on my tongue, I smell death, and who will stand by my Constanze, if you do not stay?
I must give you a piece of intelligence that you perhaps already know — namely, that the ungodly arch-villain Voltaire has died miserably like a dog — just like a brute. That is his reward!
She will never learn the most necessary, most difficult and principal thing in music, that is time, because from childhood she has designedly cultivated the habit of ignoring the beat.
My fatherland has always the first claim on me.
I care very little for Salzburg and not at all for the archbishop: I shit on both of them.
It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied.
The golden mean, the truth, is no longer recognized or valued. To win applause one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it, or so incomprehensible that it pleases simply because no sensible man can comprehend it.
A man of ordinary talent will always be ordinary, whether he travels or not: but a man of superior talent (which I cannot deny myself to be without being impious) will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place...
Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpointists to hack post-horses; therefore be advised, let well alone and remember the old Italian proverb: Chi sa più, meno sa—Who knows most, knows least.
A fellow of mediocre talent will remain a mediocrity, whether he travels or not; but one of superior talent (which without impiety I cannot deny that I possess) will go to seed if he always remains in the same place.
If Germany, my beloved fatherland, of whom you know I am proud, will not accept me, then must I, in the name of God, again make France or England richer by one capable German; — and to the shame of the German nation.
The most stimulating and encouraging thought is that you, dearest father, and my dear sister, are well, that I am an honest German, and that if I am not always permitted to talk I can think what I please; but that is all.
As I love Mannheim, Mannheim loves me.
Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.
Misattributed
I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.
Misattributed
When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer — say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep — it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them.
Misattributed