203 Quotes by Ludwig van Beethoven

A great poet is the most precious jewel of a nation.

From the glow of enthusiasm I let the melody escape. I pursue it. Breathless I catch up with it. It flies again, it disappears, it plunges into a chaos of diverse emotions. I catch it again, I seize it, I embrace it with delight... I multiply it by modulations, and at last I triumph in the first theme. There is the whole symphony.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

The real artist has no pride. Unfortunately he sees that his art has no limits. He feels obscurely how far he is from the goal. While he is perhaps being admired by others, he mourns the fact that he has not yet reached the point to which his better genius, like a distant sun, ever beckons to him.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

In the country It seems as if every tree Said to me 'Holy! Holy!' Who can ever express The ecstasy of the woods! Almighty One, In the woods I am blessed. Happy every one in the woods. Every tree speaks through Thee. O God! What glory in the woodland.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. Although the spirit be not master of that which it creates through music, yet it is blessed in this creation, which, like every creation of art, is mightier than the artist.

The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, 'Thus far and no farther.'