If I tell the Berliners to step forward, they do it. If I tell the Viennese to step forward, they do it, but then they ask why.

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Notes from Wikiquote

Herbert von Karajan in Brian Moynahan, 'Funeral in Berlin', The Sunday Times, 30 January 1983, quoted in Norman Lebrecht, The Book of Musical Anecdotes.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Herbert von Karajan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.