"I have long been convinced that my..." - Quote by Richard Wagner

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

“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.”

“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.”

“In order to be creative, you don't have to be original.”

“There is not one talent for living and another for creating. The same suffices for both. And one can be sure that the talent that could not produce but an artificial work could not sustain but a frivolous life.”

“The beautiful is a phenomenon which is never apparent of itself, but is reflected in a thousand different works of the creator.”

“Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.”

“A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.”

“The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter's at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also,--faint copies of an invisible archetype.”