Richard Wagner

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

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

Here, everything is tragic through and through, and the will, that fain would shape a world according to its wish, at last can reach no greater satisfaction than the breaking of itself in dignified annulment.

I can't distract myself enough here, for sketches to a new opera are constantly buzzing around in my head, to the extent that I need all my strength to wrest myself from them.

Everything lives and lasts by the inner necessity of its being, by its own nature's need.

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

I believe in God, Mozart and Beethoven, and likewise their disciples and apostles; - I believe in the Holy Spirit and the truth of the one, indivisible Art; - I believe that this Art proceeds from God, and lives within the hearts of all illumined men.