Franz Schubert Quotes

Music escapes ideological characterization. Just as there are some social scientists who believe that what cannot be measured does not truly exist, and some psychologists used to believe that consciousness does not exist because it cannot be observed by instruments, so ideologists find anything that escapes their conceptual framework threatening - because ideologists want a simple principle, or a few simple principles, by which all things may be judged. When I was a student, I lived with a hard-line dialectical materialist who said that Schubert was a typical petit bourgeois pessimist, whose music would die out once objective causes for pessimism ceased to exist. But I suspect that even he was not entirely happy with this formulation. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

The greatest misfortune of the wise man and the greatest unhappiness of the fool are based upon convention. ~ Franz Schubert

My compositions spring from my sorrows. Those that give the world the greatest delight were born of my deepest griefs. ~ Franz Schubert

Those who are born of grief give greatest delight to the outside world. ~ Franz Schubert

Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife. ~ Franz Schubert

When I wished to sing of love, it turned to sorrow. And when I wished to sing of sorrow, it was transformed for me into love. ~ Franz Schubert

I am in the world only for the purpose of composing. ~ Franz Schubert

No one understands another's grief, no one understands another's joy ... My music is the product of my talent and my misery. And that which I have written in my greatest distress is what the world seems to like best. ~ Franz Schubert

A man endures misfortune without complaint. ~ Franz Schubert

No one really understands the grief or joy of another. We always imagine that we are approaching some other, but our lines of travel are actually parallel. ~ Franz Schubert

O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, how infinitely many inspiring suggestions of a finer, better life you have left in our souls! ~ Franz Schubert

Easy mind, light heart. A mind that is too easy hides a heart that is too heavy. ~ Franz Schubert

The moment is supreme. ~ Franz Schubert

For long years I felt torn between the greatest grief and the greatest love. . . . Whenever I attempted to sing of love, it turned to pain. And again, when I tried to sing of pain, it turned to love. Thus were love and pain divided in me. ~ Franz Schubert

If only your pure and clean mind could touch me, dear Haydn, nobody has a greater reverence for you than I have. ~ Franz Schubert

When all hopes of recognition or honor have faded into distant memory, when purity of heart meets sorrow of mind, when all the world seems to walk in blindness and yet a man works without wearying for that which he loves ... only in this moment is passion truly understood ~ Franz Schubert

The world resembles a stage on which every man is playing a part. ~ Franz Schubert

Love is in the air these days, so we thought we'd give a try to make your day a little brighter. ~ Franz Schubert

It sometimes seems to me as if I do not belong to this world at all. I deplore music that engenders in people not love but madness: which rouses them to scornful laughter instead of lifting their thoughts to God. ~ Franz Schubert

Above all things, I must not get angry. If I do get angry I knock all the teeth out of the mouth of the poor wretch who has angered me. ~ Franz Schubert

One bites into the brass mouthpiece of his wooden cudgel, and the other blows his cheeks out on a French horn. Do you call that Art? ~ Franz Schubert

Why should the composer be more guilty than the poet who warms to fantasy by a strange flame, making an idea that inspires him the subject of his own very different treatment? ~ Franz Schubert

I want you for always ... days, years, eternities. ~ Franz Schubert

No one feels another's grief, no one understands another's joy. People imagine that they can reach one another. In reality they only pass each other by. ~ Franz Schubert

Nobody understands another's sorrow, and nobody another's joy. ~ Franz Schubert

Every night when I go to bed, I hope that I may never wake again, and every morning renews my grief. ~ Franz Schubert

I try to decorate my imagination as much as I can. ~ Franz Schubert

Utter despair, impossible to pull myself together; Only when I have become satisfied with my sufferings can I stop. ~ Franz Kafka

The laws of art are eternal and don't change at all, as the moral laws don't change in human beings. (in discussion with Franz Marc who demanded in 'Der Blaue Reiter' around 1912 a new art, in relation to its own - changing - time). ~ Max Beckmann

Fantastic literature has been especially prominent in times of unrest, when the older values have been overthrown to make way for the new; it has often accompanied or predicted change, and served to shake up rational Complacency, challenging reason and reminding man of his darker nature. Its popularity has had its ups and downs, and it has always been the preserve of a small literary minority. As a natural challenger of classical values, it is rarely part of a culture's literary mainstream, expressing the spirit of the age; but it is an important dissenting voice, a reminder of the vast mysteries of existence, sometimes truly metaphysical in scope, but more often merely riddling. ~ Franz Rottensteiner

Anyone who loves his neighbor within the limits of the world is doing no more and no less injustice than someone who loves himself within the limits of the world. ~ Franz Kafka

The longer one hesitates before the door, the more estranged one becomes. ~ Franz Kafka

Every man and every nation at one time or other becomes the weak. That's why nobody should tolerate persecution, let alone extermination, as a precedent. (p581) ~ Franz Werfel

It is perhaps an ugly comment on the American press, but the function of the interviewer on most newspapers is to entertain, not to shed light. . . . An interviewer soon begins to judge public figures on the basis of their entertainment value, overlooking their true importance. It is not easy to get an interview with Professor Franz Boas, the greatest anthropologist in the world, across a city desk, but a mild interview with Oom the Omnipotent will hit the bottom of page one under a two-column head. . . . It is safe to write accurately only about the nuts and bums. When a public figure does something ridiculous reporters may then write about him accurately. ~ Joseph Mitchell

Number is therefore the most primitive instrument of bringing an unconscious awareness of order into consciousness. ~ Marie-Louise Von Franz

Uneducated people are unfortunate in that they do grasp complex issues, educated people, on the other hand, often do not understand simplicity, which is a far greater misfortune. ~ Franz Grillparzer

Anyone who believes cannot experience miracles. By day one does not see any stars. Anyone who does miracles says: I cannot let goof the earth. ~ Franz Kafka

And now I feel like crying, because I really do not understand, and I don't think I will when I'm older either. It was only when I loved Franz I understood the world, and felt happy. When you love, you're praying. Everything was quite clear. I wanted to be good. I think you begin things the right way when you want to be good. And I think I'm doing everything wrong now because all I want is for people to be good to me. I want to be loved, everybody wants to be loved; for a thousand people who want to be loved there may perhaps be just one who wants to love. Our Father which art in heaven ... my heart is all a lump of grief. ~ Irmgard Keun

There's only one possibility: win, draw or loose. ~ Franz Beckenbauer

With a kind of perverse obstinancy his father refused to take off his official uniform even in the house; and while his robe hung uselessly on the clothes hook, his father dozed, completely dressed, in his chair, as if he were always ready for duty and were waiting even here for the voice of his superior. ~ Franz Kafka

The door could not be heard closing; they must have left it open as is usual in houses visited by great misfortune. ~ Franz Kafka

Enlightenment comes to even the dimmest. It begins around the eyes, and it spreads outward from there- a sight that might tempt one to lie down under the harrow oneself. ~ Franz Kafka

The pure mystic wishes to approach his God only in the all-embracing love. The yogi, too, walks toward one single aspect of God. The bhakti-yogi keeps to the road of love and devotion, the raja and hatha yogi choose the path of self-control or volition, the jnana yogi will follow that of wisdom and cognition. ~ Franz Bardon

The office of the prince and that of the writer are defined and assigned as follows: the nobleman gives rank to the written work,the writer provides food for the prince. ~ Franz Grillparzer

Messi is a genius. He has everything. When I watch him, I see a player who is very, very, skilful, very clever and his left foot is like Diego Maradona's. ~ Franz Beckenbauer

Whoever places his trust into a system will soon be without a home. While you are building your third story, the two lower ones have already been dismantled. ~ Franz Grillparzer

You can withdraw from the sufferings of the world - that possibility is open to you and accords with your nature - but perhaps that withdrawal is the only suffering you might be able to avoid. ~ Franz Kafka

They no longer wanted to entice anyone; all they wanted was to catch a glimpse for as long as possible of the reflected glory in the great eyes of Odysseus ~ Franz Kafka

A pious woman's neighbor, a philanthropist's child, a liberal's servant
these three have a hard life. ~ Franz Grillparzer

Surrender. That's an interesting term. We tend to see all forms of surrender as negative
war, sports, highway on-ramps. You'd never hear us describing a relationship as a type of surrender. But maybe we should. Is it wrong to cede the solo to the duet. Surrender doesn't mean you lose, only that you no longer wish to fight. ~ Franz Wisner

I foster a sorrowful conception of affection. Make no sacrifices. ~ Franz Liszt

I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones. Basically it is nothing other than this fear we have so often talked about, but fear spread to everything, fear of the greatest as of the smallest, fear, paralyzing fear of pronouncing a word, although this fear may not only be fear but also a longing for something greater than all that is fearful. ~ Franz Kafka

Everything in this world is primarily a matter of morals, and only very much later one of politics. ~ Franz Werfel

When I say something, this thing immediately and definitively loses its importance. When I write it down, it also loses it, but sometimes gains another importance. ~ Franz Kafka

The worries that are the burden of which the privileged person makes an excuse in dealing with the oppressed person are in fact the worries about preserving his privileged condition. ~ Franz Kafka

I was wise, if you like, because I was prepared for death at any moment, but not because I had taken care of everything that was given to me to do, rather because I had done none of it and could not even hope ever to do any of it. ~ Franz Kafka

Anybody who preserves the ability to recognize beauty will never get old. ~ Franz Kafka

Finally and long overdue, your people, oppressed and disgraced by hatred and maliciousness, have achieved justice: now you enjoy full citizen's rights, but you'll remain Jews nonetheless. ~ Franz Grillparzer

Robespierre, this pedant of freedom! ~ Franz Grillparzer