Ludwig van Beethoven Quotes

30 Sourced Quotes

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

Ludwig van Beethoven
I shall seize fate by the throat; it shall certainly never wholly overcome me.

Ludwig van Beethoven
To do good whenever one can, to love liberty above all else, never to deny the truth, even though it be before the throne.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Recommend virtue to your children, that alone - not wealth - can give happiness. It upholds in adversity and the thought of it and my art prevents me from putting an end to my life.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Whoever tells a lie is not pure of heart, and such a person can not cook a clean soup.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est. [Applaud, my friends, the comedy is over.]
Said on his deathbed, 1827

Ludwig van Beethoven
Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and cannot make a good soup.

Ludwig van Beethoven
I will hear in heaven!

Ludwig van Beethoven
Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?

Ludwig van Beethoven
One clashes with stupidity of all kinds. And then how much money must be spent in advance! The way in which artists are treated is really scandalous. I am compelled to give a third of my receipts to the manager of the theatre and a fifth to the hospitals. Devil take them! As long as these abuses exist, I shall always ask whether music is or is not an art that may be freely exercised. Believe me, there is nothing to be done for artists in times like these.

Ludwig van Beethoven
The foundation of friendship demands the greatest likeness of human souls and hearts.

Ludwig van Beethoven
There ought to be but one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art-works, and from which he could carry away whatever he needed. As it is, one must be half a tradesman.

Ludwig van Beethoven
The world is a king, and like a king, desires flattery in return for favor; but true art is selfish and perverse — it will not submit to the mold of flattery.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Don't only practise your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

Ludwig van Beethoven
There is no loftier mission than to approach the Divinity nearer than other men, and to disseminate the divine rays among mankind.

Ludwig van Beethoven
I have always reckoned myself among the greatest admirers of Mozart, and shall do so till the day of my death.

Ludwig van Beethoven
I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose.

Ludwig van Beethoven
The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, Thus far and no farther.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Men are not only together when they are with each other; even the distant and the dead live with us.

Ludwig van Beethoven
There is no greater pleasure for me than to practice and exhibit my art.

Ludwig van Beethoven
I haven't a single friend; I must live alone. But well I know that God is nearer to me than to the others of my art; I associate with Him without fear, I have always recognized and understood Him, and I have no fear for my music,-it can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it must become free from all the miseries that the others drag with them.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Music, verily, is the mediator between the life of the mind and the senses.
Variant translation: Music is indeed the mediator between the spiritual and sensual life.

Ludwig van Beethoven
What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived... I would uncover my head and kneel down on his tomb.

Ludwig van Beethoven
What humiliation when someone who stood next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or when someone heard the shepherd boy singing and again I heard nothing. Such misfortune brought me to the edge of despair, and I might have brought an end to my life—only my art held me back.

Ludwig van Beethoven
I met [Meyerbeer] at the performance of my "Battle." Most of the composers then in Vienna were kind enough to undertake something or other in my orchestra, and the young man played the big drum. Ha! ha! ha! (a peal of laughter). I had reason not to be very well satisfied with him. He was always behindhand, and I had to give it him roundly. (New peal of laughter.) He must have felt mortified by my observations; but there is no reliance to be placed in him; he has not the courage to raise his arm at the proper moment.

Ludwig van Beethoven
One must not hold one's self so divine as to be unwilling occasionally to make improvements in one's creations.

Ludwig van Beethoven
It is a recognised fact that the greatest composers were likewise the greatest virtuosos; but did they play like the pianists of the present day, who run up and down the keyboard with passages studied beforehand? Pooh! pooh! pooh! Don't tell me! A real virtuoso, when extemporising, plays pieces which hold together and possess a form. Were the ideas in them fixed instantly on paper, they would be taken for pieces written at leisure. That is what I call playing the piano; everything else is a bad joke.

Ludwig van Beethoven
In the country It seems as if every tree Said to me 'Holy! Holy!' Who can ever express The ecstasy of the woods! Almighty One, In the woods I am blessed. Happy every one in the woods. Every tree speaks through Thee. O God! What glory in the woodland.

Ludwig van Beethoven