Franz Liszt

My mind and fingers have worked like the damned. Homer, the Bible, Plato, Locke, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber are all around me. I study them. I devour them with fury.

It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.

Music is the heart of life." She speaks love; "without it, there is no possible good and with it everything is beautiful.

For the virtuoso, musical works are in fact nothing but tragic and moving materializations of his emotions; he is called upon to make them speak, weep, sing and sigh, to recreate them in accordance with his own consciousness. In this way he, like the composer, is a creator, for he must have within himself those passions that he wishes to bring so intensely to life.

I conclude that the Wagnerian operas which are already in the repertoire, and other masterworks as well, stand in no further need of my services.

Music is never stationary; successive forms and styles are only like so many resting-places - like tents pitched and taken down again on the road to the Ideal.

A good Cuban cigar closes the doors to the vulgarities of the world.

Sorrowful and great is the artist's destiny.

Life is only a long and bitter suicide, and faith alone can transform this suicide into a sacrifice.

Inspiration is enough to give expression to the tone in singing, especially when the song is without words.

Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.

Supreme serenity still remains the Ideal of great Art. The shapes and transitory forms of life are but stages toward this Ideal, which Christ's religion illuminates with His divine light.

A theatre receives recognition through its initiative, which is indispensable for first-rate performances.

I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.

Beware of missing chances; otherwise it may be altogether too late some day.

Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist.