“The purpose of art: to make the unconscious conscious.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I write music with an exclamation point!”
“Richard Wagner, a musician who wrote music which is better than it sounds.”
“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.”
“You know my faithfulness to you, never can another own my heart, never - never - never...”
“Everything lives and lasts by the inner necessity of its being, by its own nature's need.”
“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.”
“Life is earnest - and always has been.”
“It is a truth forever, that where the speech of man stops short there Music's reign begins.”
“Joy is not in things; it is in us.”
“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.”
“The language of tones belongs equally to all mankind, and melody is the absolute language in which the musician speaks to every heart.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Whatever my passions demand of me, I become for the time being - musician, poet, director, author, lecturer or anything else.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Certain things in Mozart will and can never be excelled.”
“A political man is disgusting, but a political wife, horrible.”
“I know nothing at all about music.”
“I am fond of them, of the inferior beings of the abyss, of those who are full of longing.”
“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.”
