Franz Liszt Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“Real men are sadly lacking in this world, for when they are put to the test they prove worthless.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“My mind and fingers have worked like the damned. Homer, the Bible, Plato, Locke, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber are all around me. I study them. I devour them with fury.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“For the virtuoso, musical works are in fact nothing but tragic and moving materializations of his emotions; he is called upon to make them speak, weep, sing and sigh, to recreate them in accordance with his own consciousness. In this way he, like the composer, is a creator, for he must have within himself those passions that he wishes to bring so intensely to life.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“Beware of missing chances; otherwise it may be altogether too late some day.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“The day will come when all nations amidst which the Jews are dwelling will have to raise the question of their wholesale expulsion, a question which will be one of life or death, good health or chronic disease, peaceful existence or perpetual social fever.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“A good Cuban cigar closes the doors to the vulgarities of the world.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“A person of any mental quality has ideas of his own. This is common sense.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“When you write the story of two happy lovers, let the story be set on the banks of Lake Como.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“Music is the heart of life." She speaks love; "without it, there is no possible good and with it everything is beautiful.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“Broad paths are open to every endeavour, and a sympathetic recognition is assured to every one who consecrates his art to the divine services of a conviction of a consciousness.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“It is impossible to imagine a more complete fusion with nature than that of the Gypsy.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“A theatre receives recognition through its initiative, which is indispensable for first-rate performances.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“We need improvement in the style of performance. There is no more advantage in a musician who plays and conducts than in one who is only a beater of rhythm.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“My sole ambition as a composer is to hurl my javelin into the infinite space of the future.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“Sorrowful and great is the artist's destiny.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“Life is only a long and bitter suicide, and faith alone can transform this suicide into a sacrifice.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“I conclude that the Wagnerian operas which are already in the repertoire, and other masterworks as well, stand in no further need of my services.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“I did not compose my work as one might put on a church vestment... rather it sprung from the truly fervent faith of my heart, such as I have felt it since my childhood.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“Music is never stationary; successive forms and styles are only like so many resting-places - like tents pitched and taken down again on the road to the Ideal.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“The supreme harmony of the cosmos is selected in the harmony of the spirit.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“The principal task of a conductor is not to put himself in evidence but to disappear behind his functions as much as possible. We are pilots, not servants.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“So let us not worry, and look instead as it has been taught us to do, as the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, keeping complete faith in Our Father's goodness.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“In life one must decide whether to conjugate the verb to have or the verb to be.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“The music of the Gypsies belongs in the sphere of improvisation rather than in any other, without which it would have no power to exist.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.”
-- Franz Liszt -
“Brahms' Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his.”
-- Franz Liszt