Richard Wagner Quotes

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

The purpose of art: to make the unconscious conscious.

The French idea of playing an instrument well is to be able to SING well upon it.

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

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

The immoral profession of musical criticism must be abolished.

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

It should not be presumed that these people (the Jews), who are so separated from us by their religion, have any right to make our laws. But why blame the Jews? It is we who lack all feeling for our own identity, all sense of honour.

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

Certain things in Mozart will and can never be excelled.

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.

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 ...

Plant life instead of animal food is the keystone of regeneration. Jesus used bread instead of flesh and wine in place of blood at the Lord's Supper.

I wish I could score everything for horns.

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.

I believe in God, Mozart and Beethoven, and likewise their disciples and apostles; - I believe in the Holy Spirit and the truth of the one, indivisible Art; - I believe that this Art proceeds from God, and lives within the hearts of all illumined men; - I believe that he who once has bathed in the sublime delights of this high Art, is consecrate to Her for ever, and never can deny Her; - I believe that through Art all men are saved.

Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them.

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 sounds proceeding from the instruments of symphonic music seem to be the very organs of the mysteries of creation; for they reveal, as it were, the primal stirrings of creation which brought order out of chaos long before the human heart was there to behold them.

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.

Bruckner he is my man!

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

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.

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

The only form of music is melody, without melody music is not feasible, and music and melody are quite inseparable.

Parsifal is on his way to the temple of the Grail Knights and says: "I hardly move, yet far I seem to have come", and the all-knowing Gurnemanz replies: "You see, my son, time turns here into space

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.

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.

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.

What was infinitely more valuable to Wagner, and what excited his gratitude to even more superlative utterance, was the confidence which Liszt showed in his genius, and without which, it is no exaggeration to say, Wagner's greatest works would probably have remained unwritten.

One might say that where Religion becomes artificial, it is reserved for Art to save the spirit of religion.

Those who grasp the whole, will also comprehend all parts of that whole, even when immediate technical understanding is lacking, and recognize and marshal these.

I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired.

When religion becomes artificial, art has a duty to rescue it. Art can show that the symbols which religions would have us believe literally true are actually figurative. Art can idealize those symbols, and so reveal the profound truths they contain.

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.

I know of only one composer who measures up to Beethoven, and that is Bruckner.

The whole duty of a conductor is comprised in his ability to indicate the right tempo.

I know absolutely nothing about music.

I know nothing at all about music.

Only the Strong know Love; only Love can fathom Beauty; only Beauty can fashion Art.

In contrast to reincarnation and karma, all other views seem petty and narrow

Music truely has to all other arts the same relation as religion to the church.

I can't see the logic in medicating a grieving person like there was something wrong with her, and yet it happens all the time... you go to the doctor with symptoms of profound grief and they push an antidepressant at you. We need to walk through our grief, not medicate it and shove it under the carpet like it wasn't there.

The error in the art-genre of Opera consists herein: a Means of expression (Music) has been made the end, while the End of expression (the Drama) has been made a means.

The most tremendous genius raised Mozart above all masters,
in all centuries and in all the arts.

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.