In poetry there are two giants, rough Homer and fine Shakespere. In music likewise we have two giants, Beethoven, the thinker, and the superthinker B…

- Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky

Art is not an end in itself, but a means of addressing humanity.

- Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky

My music must be an artistic reproduction of human speech in all its finest shades. That is, the sounds of human speech, as the external manifestatio…

- Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky

Thanks to nanny, I've got a deep understanding of Russian tales.

- Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky

I regard the people as a great being, inspired by a single idea. This is my problem. I strove to solve it in this opera.

- Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky

And another thing about German symphonic development. I tell you, our cold kvass soup is a horror to the Germans, and yet we eat it with pleasure. An…

- Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky