Mozart Quotes

“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.”

“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.”

“I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.”

“When I am completely myself, entirely alone... or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly.”

“All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak and speak in such a way that people will remember it.”

“To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.”

“I choose such notes that love one another.”

“I am one of those who will go on doing till all doings are at an end.”

“It is a mistake to think that the practice of music is a mere pastime.”

“The best way to learn is through the powerful force of rhythm.”

“Melody is the essence of music.”

“I am a fool. That is well known.”

“These concertos are a happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult; they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural, without being vapid. There are passages here and there from which the connoisseurs alone can derive satisfaction; but these passages are written in such a way that the less learned cannot fail to be pleased, though without knowing why.”

“Parents endeavour to place their children in a position to earn their own bread; and in this they follow alike their own interest and that of the State. The greater the talents which children have received from God, the more are they bound to use them for the improvement of their own and their parents' circumstances.”

“When you are improvising, you can play with anarchy if you like, because different things can happen, unexpected things or rational things. When you compose, of course, you have time to reflect on these things. You can be sitting there with your quill dipped into the inkwell while you think about how things are going to go.”

“At six o'clock in the morning I have my hair dressed, and have finished my toilet by seven o'clock. I write till nine. From nine to one I give lessons. I then dine, unless I am invited out. I cannot begin to work before five or six o'clock in the evening, and I am often prevented doing so by some concert; otherwise I write till nine o'clock.”

“Two opposing elements rule his nature, I mean, there is either too much or too little, never the golden mean.”

“Your son is the greatest composer known to me in person or by name; he has taste, and what is more the greatest knowledge of composition.”

“I think that something is going on behind the scenes, and that doubtless here too I have enemies. Where, indeed, have I not had them?”

“Death is the true goal of our existence, the best and truest friend of mankind.”