26 Quotes by Giuseppe Verdi

Oh, you happy sons of the North who have been reared at the bosom of Bach, how I envy you!

I deny that either singers or conductors can create or work creatively - this, as I have always said, is a conception that leads to the abyss.

The artist must yield himself to his own inspiraton, and if he has a true talent, no one knows and feels better than he what suits him.

Oh blessed a thousand times the peasant who is born, eats and dies without anybody bothering about his affairs.

Our mistake, you see, was to write interminable large operas, which had to fill an entire evening. And now along comes someone with a one or two-act opera without all that pompous nonsense - that was a happy reform.

Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music.

A man like Verdi must write like Verdi.

Stupid criticism and still more stupid praise.

Through care taken over trends, the desire to be novel and affectation knowledge, we repudiate our art, our instinct, our own way of doing things; it is absurd and stupid