24 Quotes by Felix Mendelssohn

Never mind, put any book on the piano, and someone can turn from time to time, so I need not look as though I played by heart.

I know perfectly well that no musician can make his thoughts or his talents different to what Heaven has made them; but I also know that if Heaven had given him good ones, he must also be able to develop them properly.

Pray to God that He might create is us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us.

First and foremost an artist should pay homage to grandness, honour and bow to it, and not try to extinguish the fierce flames of such, in an attempt to have his own feeble light shine brighter. When one isn't able to acknowledge greatness, I would really want to know how he endeavours to make me experience it.

And do you agree with me, that the first condition of an artist should be to bear respect toward what is great, and to bow to it and acknowledge it and not attempt to extinguish great flames for the sake of making his own rushlight burn more brightly?

This is what I think art is and what I demand of it: that it pull everyone in, that it show one person another's most intimate thoughts and feelings, that it throw open the window of the soul.

People usually complain that music is so ambiguous, and what they are supposed to think when they hear it is so unclear, while words are understood by everyone. But for me it is exactly the opposite...what the music I love expresses to me are thoughts not to indefinite for words, but rather too definite.

Life and art are not two different things....

It's not that music is too imprecise for words, but too precise....