List of Felix Mendelssohn Quotes

And Here We Come To The Vital Distinction Between The Advocacy Of Temperance And The Advocacy Of Prohibition. Temperance And Self-control Are Convertible Terms. Prohibition, Or That Which It Implies, Is The Direct Negation Of The Term Self-control. In Order To Save The Small Percentage Of Men Who Are Too Weak To Resist Their Animal Desires, It Aims To Put Chains On Every Man, The Weak And The Strong Alike. And If This Is Proper In One Respect, Why Not In All Respects? Yet, What Would One Think Of A Proposition To Keep All Men Locked Up Because A Certain Number Have A Propensity To Steal?

No One Can Bar Me From Joyfully Proceeding On What The Great Masters Have Left Us; After All, To Rediscover Everything Again, Should Be Understood To Be Unfounded. But One Should However Proceed On Merit, And Not Simply Repeat Wat Was. All Genius, Sincere, Deserves His Place, Even Though Maybe Later In Life.

Such A Divine Profession Is Art! When Everything Else Looks So Stale And Disgustingly Vacuous, So Enthralls Even The Littlest Real Effort Of Art Our Innermost And Carries Us From Town, From Country, From Earth, As That It Must Be Truely A Blessing Of The Gods.

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.

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.

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?

Ever Since I Began To Compose, I Have Remained True To My Starting Principle: Not To Write A Page Because No Matter What Public, Or What Pretty Girl Wanted It To Be Thus Or Thus; But To Write Solely As I Myself Thought Best, And As It Gave Me Pleasure.

These, Too, Seem To Me So Ambiguous, So Vague, So Easily Misunderstood In Comparison To Genuine Music, Which Fills The Soul With A Thousand Things Better Than Words.

I Dislike Nothing More Than Finding Fault With A Man's Nature Or Talent; It Only Depresses And Worries And Does No Good; One Cannot Add A Cubit To One's Stature, All Striving And Struggling Are Useless There, So One Has To Be Silent About It, And Let The Responsibility Rest With God.

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.

The Trombone Is Too Sacred For Frequent Use.