Richard Wagner Quotes

Music is the inarticulate speech of the heart, which cannot be compressed into words, because it is infinite.

Joy is not in things; it is in us.

The purpose of art: to make the unconscious conscious.

I regard the Jewish race as the born enemy of pure humanity and everything that is noble in it.

Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them.

Imagination creates reality.

The language of tones belongs equally to all mankind, and melody is the absolute language in which the musician speaks to every heart.

It is a truth forever, that where the speech of man stops short there Music's reign begins.

We must learn to die, and to die in the fullest sense of the word. The fear of the end is the source of all lovelessness

My destiny is solitude, and my life is work.

A political man is disgusting, but a political wife, horrible.

The essence of higher instrumental music lays herein that one is able to express in tones that what one is unable to say in words.

I hate this fast growing tendency to chain men to machines in big factories and deprive them of all joy in their efforts - the plan will lead to cheap men and cheap products.

I write music with an exclamation point!

The oldest, truest, most beautiful organ of music, the origin to which alone our music owes its being, is the human voice.

The only form of music is melody, without melody music is not feasible, and music and melody are quite inseparable.

One might say that where Religion becomes artificial, it is reserved for Art to save the spirit of religion.

Even if I know I shall never change the masses, never transform anything permanent, all I ask is that the good things also have their place, their refuge.

Richard Wagner, a musician who wrote music which is better than it sounds.

I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired.

Human dignity begins to assert itself only at the point where man is distinguishable from the beast by pity for it.

I am fond of them, of the inferior beings of the abyss, of those who are full of longing.

Many's the man/ who thought himself wise/ but what he needed/ he did not know.

Divorce is one of the most financially traumatic things you can go through. Money spent on getting mad or getting even is money wasted.

If experiments on animals were abandoned on grounds of compassion, mankind would have made a fundamental advance.

One siupreme fact which I have discovered is that it is not willpower, but fantasy and imagination that ceates. Imagination is the creative force. Imagination creates reality.

For once you are going to hear a dream, a dream that I have made sound... I dreamed all this; never could my poor head have invented such a thing.

Whatever I thought right, to others seemed wrong; what I held to be bad, others approved of.

I know absolutely nothing about music.

In contrast to reincarnation and karma, all other views seem petty and narrow

Wherever the fish are, that's where we go.

Attack and defence, want and war, victory and defeat, lordship and thraldom, all sealed with the seal of blood: this from henceforth is the History of Man.

The whole duty of a conductor is comprised in his ability to indicate the right tempo.

I have long been convinced that my artistic ideal stands or falls with Germany. Only the Germany that we love and desire can help us achieve that ideal.

Plant life instead of animal food is the keystone of regeneration. Jesus used bread instead of flesh and wine in place of blood at the Lord's Supper.

Those who grasp the whole, will also comprehend all parts of that whole, even when immediate technical understanding is lacking, and recognize and marshal these.

Blessed be, the genius who never knew good fortune! Genius in itself already means so much; what meaning does luck still hold for him?

I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven.

...music is the living God in our bosoms.

Whatever my passions demand of me, I become for the time being - musician, poet, director, author, lecturer or anything else.

Achievements, seldom credited to their source, are the result of unspeakable drudgery and worries.

That even in its sharpest pangs of pain a dog can still caress its master we have learnt from the studies of vivisectors.

The error in the art-genre of Opera consists herein: a Means of expression (Music) has been made the end, while the End of expression (the Drama) has been made a means.

The most tremendous genius raised Mozart above all masters, in all centuries and in all the arts.

The immoral profession of musical criticism must be abolished.

I know nothing at all about music.

Music truely has to all other arts the same relation as religion to the church.

Any so-called stimulus program is a ruse. The government can increase its spending only by reducing private spending equivalently.

You know my faithfulness to you, never can another own my heart, never - never - never...

I am writing Parsifal only for my wife - if I had to depend on the German spirit, I should have nothing more to say.