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Music has taken a bad turn; these young people have no idea how to write a melody, they just give us shavings, which they dress up to look like a lion's mane and shake at us... It's as if they avoid melodies, for fear of having perhaps stolen them from someone else.

— Richard Wagner Cosima Wagner's Diaries (1978)

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More quotes by Richard Wagner

The oldest, truest, most beautiful organ of music, the origin to which alone our music owes its being, is the human voice.

Opera and Drama (1851)

This is Alberich's dream come true — Nibelheim, world dominion, activity, work, everywhere the oppressive feeling of steam and fog.

Cosima Wagner's Diaries (1978)

I am writing Parsifal only for my wife — if I had to depend on the German spirit, I should have nothing more to say.

Cosima Wagner's Diaries (1978)

Certain things in Mozart will and can never be excelled.

Cosima Wagner's Diaries (1978)

"Property" has acquired an almost greater sacredness in our social conscience than religion: for offence against the latter there is lenience, for damage to the former no forgiveness.

Know Thyself (1881)

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