Richard Wagner

“The essence of higher instrumental music lays herein that one is able to express in tones that what one is unable to say in words.”

“The language of tones belongs equally to all mankind, and melody is the absolute language in which the musician speaks to every heart.”

“The patriot subordinates himself to his State in order to raise it above all other States and thus, as it were, to find his personal sacrifice repaid with ample interest through the might and greatness of his fatherland.”

“Music is the inarticulate speech of the heart, which cannot be compressed into words, because it is infinite.”

“What Music expresses is eternal, infinite, and ideal; she expresses not the passion, love, desire, of this or that individual in this or that condition, but Passion, Love, Desire itself, and in such infinitely varied phases as lie in her unique possession and are foreign and unknown to any other tongue...So...Here's to Victory, gained by our higher sense over the worthlessness of the vulgar! To Love, which crowns our courage...To the day, to the night!...And three cheers for Music.”

“Attack and defence, want and war, victory and defeat, lordship and thraldom, all sealed with the seal of blood: this from henceforth is the History of Man.”

“Whatever I thought right, to others seemed wrong; what I held to be bad, others approved of.”

“Richard Wagner, a musician who wrote music which is better than it sounds.”

“It is impossible to communicate with Schumann. The man is hopeless; he doesn't talk at all.”

“It is a truth forever, that where the speech of man stops short there Music's reign begins.”

“A political man is disgusting, but a political wife, horrible.”

“The long-term vision is to replace, repair and regenerate failing tissues and organs with the materials of tissues and organs. It's still 'out there,' but it's possible to put together a grant proposal now that doesn't sound completely crazy.”

“Human dignity begins to assert itself only at the point where man is distinguishable from the beast by pity for it.”

“Whatever my passions demand of me, I become for the time being - musician, poet, director, author, lecturer or anything else.”

“We must learn to die, and to die in the fullest sense of the word. The fear of the end is the source of all lovelessness”

“I write music with an exclamation point!”

“Imagination creates reality.”

“I know nothing at all about music.”

“Everything lives and lasts by the inner necessity of its being, by its own nature's need.”

“Even if I know I shall never change the masses, never transform anything permanent, all I ask is that the good things also have their place, their refuge.”

“The purpose of art: to make the unconscious conscious.”

“You know my faithfulness to you, never can another own my heart, never - never - never...”

“Whether government finances its added spending by increasing taxes, by borrowing, or by inflating the currency, the added spending will be offset by reduced private spending. Furthermore, private spending is generally more efficient than the government spending that would replace it because people act more carefully when they spend their own money than when they spend other people's money.”

“Life is earnest - and always has been.”

“I have long been convinced that my artistic ideal stands or falls with Germany. Only the Germany that we love and desire can help us achieve that ideal.”

“I can't distract myself enough here, for sketches to a new opera are constantly buzzing around in my head, to the extent that I need all my strength to wrest myself from them.”

“For once you are going to hear a dream, a dream that I have made sound... I dreamed all this; never could my poor head have invented such a thing.”

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

“From its first faint glimmerings, History shews Man's constant progress as a beast of prey. As such he conquers every land, subdues the fruit-fed races, founds mighty realms by subjugating other subjugators, forms states and sets up civilisations, to enjoy his prey at rest.”

“We find personal success and great, if not enduring, influence on the outer fashioning of the world allotted to the violent, the passionate individual who, unchaining the elemental principles of human impulse under favoring circumstances, points out to greed and self-indulgence the speedy pathways to their satisfaction.”

“Many's the man/ who thought himself wise/ but what he needed/ he did not know.”

“I was in a state of gnawing, sensuous agitation that excited continually both blood and nerves when I sketched out the music for 'Tannhauser' and brought it to completion.”

“Wherever the fish are, that's where we go.”

“It is necessary for us to explain the involuntary repugnance we possess for the nature and personality of the Jews. The Jews have never produced a true poet. Heinrich Heine reached the point where he duped himself into a poet, and was rewarded by his versified lies being set to music by our own composers. He was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization.”

“I have only a mind to live, to enjoy - i.e., to work as an artist, and produce my works; but not for the muddy brains of the common herd.”

“One siupreme fact which I have discovered is that it is not willpower, but fantasy and imagination that ceates. Imagination is the creative force. Imagination creates reality.”

“Achievements, seldom credited to their source, are the result of unspeakable drudgery and worries.”

“Though German art can never be Bavarian, but simply German, yet Munich is the capital of this German Art; here, under shelter of a Prince who kindles my enthusiasm, to feel myself a native and member of the people was, to me, the homeless wanderer, a deep, a genuine need.”

“Any so-called stimulus program is a ruse. The government can increase its spending only by reducing private spending equivalently.”

“I know absolutely nothing about music.”

“If experiments on animals were abandoned on grounds of compassion, mankind would have made a fundamental advance.”

“Certain things in Mozart will and can never be excelled.”

“Joy is not in things; it is in us.”

“Here, everything is tragic through and through, and the will, that fain would shape a world according to its wish, at last can reach no greater satisfaction than the breaking of itself in dignified annulment.”

“I am fond of them, of the inferior beings of the abyss, of those who are full of longing.”