Ludwig van Beethoven

Music comes to me more readily than words.

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

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

I joyfully hasten to meet death. If it come before I have had opportunity to develop all my artistic faculties, it will come, my hard fate notwithstanding, too soon, and I should probably wish it later - yet even then I shall be happy, for will it not deliver me from a state of endless suffering?

This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble.

One must not hold one's self so divine as to be unwilling occasionally to make improvements in one's creations.

Beethoven can write music thank God - but he can do nothing else on earth.

I would rather write 10,000 notes than a single letter of the alphabet.

I like your opera - I think I will set it to music

Whoever tells a lie is not pure of heart, and such a person can not cook a clean soup.

Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est.(Applaud, my friends, the comedy is

Applaud my friends, the comedy is over...[on his death bed]

If once he has got the right fingering, plays in good time, with the notes fairly correct, then only pull him up about the rendering; and when he has arrived at that stage, don__ let him stop for the sake of small faults, but point them out to him when he has played the piece through. . . I have always adopted this plan; it soon forms musicians which, after all, is one of the first aims of art and it gives less trouble both to master and pupil.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have admit to yourself your own errors.