Schumann Quotes

If I have known much trouble in my youth, I have also known much joy. ~ Clara Schumann

I will yield to popular demands only insofar as they do not betray my own convictions. ~ Clara Schumann

My whole life has been a struggle between Poetry and Prose, or call it Music and Law. ~ Robert Schumann

To compose is to remember music that has never been written. ~ Robert Schumann

Why hurry over beautiful things? Why not linger and enjoy them? ~ Clara Schumann

Only when the form grows clear to you, will the spirit become so too. ~ Robert Schumann

I was a God-fearing child, innocent and physically attractive. ~ Robert Schumann

You should neither play bad compositions, nor, unless compelled, listen to them. ~ Robert Schumann

Know what you want to do - then do it. Make straight for your goal and go undefeated in spirit to the end. ~ Ernestine Schumann-Heink

He gives me the impression of being a spoilt child.

(on Liszt) ~ Clara Schumann

Composing gives me great pleasure ... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound. ~ Clara Schumann

When you play, never mind who listens to you. ~ Robert Schumann

The aesthetic principle is the same in every art, only the material differs. ~ Robert Schumann

Monster a person though monster not human.
Monster like music. Like Beatles! Like Schumann!
World full of stupid. World full of noise.
Monster feel ANGRY. No birthday. No joys.
World full of JUNK monster not comprehend.
What is a childhood? What is a friend?
Monster and human both want the same.
Want conversation. Want love. WANT NO PAIN.
If monster speak heart: monster life only worsen.
Monster not human: BUT MONSTER A PERSON! ~ Jennifer Finney Boylan

You should diligently play scales and fingerpractices. There are many, however, who believe they'll achieve all, by practicing daily on technique for hours on end, up till high age. It's like practicing every day to enumerate the alfabet faster and faster. One would think one could make better use of their valuable time. ~ Robert Schumann

I feel so entirely in my element with a full orchestra; even if my mortal enemies were marshalled before me, I could lead them, master them, surround them, or repulse them. ~ Robert Schumann

Music - so different from painting - is the art which we enjoy most in company with others. A symphony, presented in a room with one other listener, would please him but little. ~ Robert Schumann

Perhaps only a Genius can truly understand Genius. ~ Robert Schumann

It was an unforgettable picture to see Chopin sitting at the piano like a clairvoyant, lost in his dreams; to see how his vision communicated itself through his playing, and how, at the end of each piece, he had the sad habit of running one finger over the length of the plaintive keyboard, as though to tear himself forcibly away from his dream. ~ Robert Schumann

Can that which has cost the artist days, weeks, months and even years of reflection be understood in a flash by a dilettante? ~ Robert Schumann

For me Wagner is impossible ... he talks without ever stopping. One can't just talk all the time. ~ Robert Schumann

Confidence and courage are special skills to the art ... Within the four walls of his study, the artist should be modest, work diligently and conscientiously. While for the public, he'll show himself audacious, yes even into cheerful boldness. And so a new public's darling has arisen. ~ Robert Schumann

It's rather splendid to think of all those great men and women who appear to have presented symptoms that allow us to describe them as bipolar. Whether it's Hemingway, Van Gogh ... Robert Schumann has been mentioned ... Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath ... some of them with rather grim ends. ~ Stephen Fry

Music owes as much to Bach as religion to its founder. ~ Robert Schumann

You said how Michelangelo was a manic-depressive who portrayed himself as a flayed martyr in his painting. Henri Matisse gave up being a lawyer because of appendicitis. Robert Schumann only began composing after his right hand became paralyzed and ended his career as a concert pianist. (...) You talked about Nietzsche and his tertiary syphilis. Mozart and his uremia. Paul Klee and the scleroderma that shrank his joints and muscles to death. Frida Kahlo and the spina bifida that covered her legs with bleeding sores. Lord Byron and his clubfoot. The Bronte sisters and their tuberculosis. Mark Rothko and his suicide. Flannery O'Connor and her lupus. Inspiration needs disease, injury, madness.

"According to Thomas Mann," Peter said, "'Great artists are great invalids. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Endeavour to play easy pieces well and with elegance; that is better than to play difficult pieces badly. ~ Robert Schumann

The poet sees better than other mortals. I do not see things as they are, but according to my own subjective impression, and this makes life easier and simpler. ~ Robert Schumann

One encounters very capable fathers abashed by their piano-playing daughters. Three measures of Schumann make them red with embarrassment. ~ Alfred Doblin

That first concept is alway the most naturally and best. The mind errs, the emotion never. ~ Robert Schumann

The melody rose, unprofitably magical. It broke; it was resumed broken, not marching once from the cradle to the grave. The sadness of the incomplete - the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art - throbbed in its disjected phrases, and made the nerves of the audience throb. Not thus had she played on the little draped piano at the Bertolini, and "Too much Schumann" was not the remark that Mr. Beebe had passed to himself when she returned. ~ E. M. Forster

Remember, there are more people in the world than yourself. Be modest! You have not yet invented nor thought anything which others have not thought or invented before. And should you really have done so, consider it a gift of heaven which you are to share with others. ~ Robert Schumann

Professor Schumann Antelme makes it clear that the Egyptians viewed the tomb as a remote-control switch that caused actions in heaven in response to the terrestrial activities with which they were associated. This concept can be summed up best by the alchemists' celebrated formula of "as above, so below," which in other words means that there is a precise correspondence between heaven and earth. This theory is also the rationale behind astrology and other esoteric doctrines. The alchemical tradition, and all religious tradition, had its origin in the sacred science of the ancient Egyptians. ~ Ruth Schumann Antelme

Once, somebody asked Robert Schumann to explain the meaning of a certain piece of music he had just played on the piano.
What Robert Schumann did was sit back down at the piano and play the piece of music again. ~ David Markson

You write to become immortal, or because the piano happens to be open, or you've looked into a pair of beautiful eyes. ~ Robert Schumann

Music induces nightingales to sing, pug dogs to yelp. ~ Robert Schumann

I've got great joy from rediscovering Western music. I love Schumann and Chopin, and those amazing symphonies of Bruckner. ~ John Tavener

I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose - there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one? ~ Clara Schumann

It is impossible to communicate with Schumann. The man is hopeless; he doesn't talk at all. ~ Richard Wagner

We have learned to express the more delicate nuances of feeling by penetrating more deeply into the mysteries of harmony. ~ Robert Schumann

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts
such is the duty of the artist. ~ Robert Schumann

Thus it is ever in life. The aims we once pursued no longer satisfy us; we aim, we strive, we aspire, until sight fails, and mind and body find rest in the grave. ~ Robert Schumann

It is the curse of talent that, although it labors with greater steadiness and perseverance than genius, it does not reach its goal, while genius already on the summit of the ideal, gazes laughingly about. ~ Robert Schumann

If all would play first violin, we could not obtain an orchestra. Therefore esteem every musician in his place. ~ Robert Schumann

Just as surely as every new language mastered opens up a new world, so knowledge of a Beethoven, a Chopin, or a Schumann opens up a new world in spiritual beauty and thought. ~ Ignacy Jan Paderewski

The hearing of masterworks of different epochs will speediest of all cure you of vanity and self-adoration. ~ Schumann Robert

How often have I actually discovered in myself that enthusiasm raises the artist above himself, how in an ordinary mood one would not have been able to accomplish many of the things for which enthusiasm lends one everything, energy, fire. ~ Clara Schumann

You will be most readily cured of vanity or presumption by studying the history of music, and by hearing the master pieces which have been produced at different periods. ~ Robert Schumann

My heart pounds sickeningly and I turn pale ... I often feel as if I were dead ... I seem to be losing my mind. ~ Robert Schumann

Is an artist much more than a beggar? ~ Clara Schumann

People compose for many reasons, to become immortal; because the piano happens to be open; because they want to become a millionaire; because of the praise of friends; because they have looked into a pair of beautiful eyes; or for no reason whatsoever. ~ Robert Schumann

By means of industry and perseverance you will rise higher and higher. ~ Robert Schumann

God answers every prayer, Rabbi Schumann once told him, years ago. Mostly His answer is 'no'. ~ Paul Russell

We shouldn't repeat the same for ages on end, but look into the new as well. ~ Robert Schumann

My health may be better preserved if I exert myself less, but in the end doesn't each person give his life for his calling? ~ Clara Schumann

When you play, do not trouble yourself as to who is listening. Yet always play as though a master listened to you. ~ Robert Schumann

Art was not created as a way to riches. Strive to become a true artist; all else will take care of itself. ~ Robert Schumann

I sometimes lack confidence in public, although I am proud enough inwardly. ~ Robert Schumann

Nature best teaches how to pray, and how to reverence all the gifts the Almighty has given us. She is like a vast outspread handkerchief, embroidered with God's eternal name, on which we may dry alike our tears of sorrow and of joy; she turns weeping into ecstasy, and fills our hearts with speechless, quiet reverence and resignation. ~ Robert Schumann

There is nothing greater than the joy of composing something oneself and then listening to it. ~ Clara Schumann

If we were all determined to play the first violin we should never have an ensemble. Therefore, respect every musician in his proper place. ~ Robert Schumann

An evil fate has deprived me of the full use of my right hand, so that I am not able to play my compositions as I feel them. The trouble with my hand is that certain fingers have become so weak, probably through writing and playing too much at one time, that I can hardly use them. ~ Robert Schumann

I cannot be so bad when everybody is so fond of me. ~ Clara Schumann

It was no use to tell a person to forget. No matter how hard you tried to put it out of your mind, the hurt would still be there, festering under the forgetfulness, sending poison through your veins. ~ Mary Schumann

Treasures are no longer to be got by instrumental art. ~ Clara Schumann

The tea is ice-cold, the room grows colder and colder, but I grow warmer and warmer. ~ Clara Schumann

Let your intimate friends be chosen from such as are better informed than yourself. ~ Robert Schumann

Too often, people who suffered trauma let themselves be defined by it, and she has been determined to avoid that fate. ~ Katrin Schumann

"We liked it" or "I didn't like it" people say. As if it were nothing higher than to please the people! ~ Robert Schumann

Every man has his faults; I have and so have you - you will allow me to say so! ~ Clara Schumann

Nothing right can be accomplished in art without enthusiasm. ~ Robert Schumann