Frédéric Chopin
Poet of the piano, transformed piano music
Most quoted
"One needs only to study a certain positioning of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful sounds, to know how to play long notes and short notes and to [attain] certain unlimited dexterity... A well formed technique, it seems to me, [is one] that can control and vary a beautiful sound quality."
— from Prose writings
"Paris is whatever you want it to be. You can amuse yourself, be bored, laugh, cry, do whatever you like, and no one will so much as look at you, because thousands of others are doing exactly the same thing, each in his own way."
— from Letter, 1831
"When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher."
— from Attributed remark
All quotes by Frédéric Chopin (369)
I am not a man of the geographical.
I am not a man of the cultural.
I am not a man of the religious.
I am not a man of the ethical.
I am not a man of the moral.
I am not a man of the aesthetic.
I am not a man of the beautiful.
I am not a man of the sublime.
I am not a man of the tragic.
I am not a man of the comic.
Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.
Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on.
I wish I could write a book to make some real money... I sell a few, and I give away even more.
The earth is suffocating... swear to make no music like mine. Ever.
Play Beethoven's Appassionata, but always in time.
Bach is like an astronomer who, through a telescope, discovers the stars. He does not see the heavens, but he knows they exist.
I am not fitted to give concerts. The audience intimidates me, I feel choked by its breath, made powerless by its curious glances.
One ought only to compose when one is in the mood, and there is no room for a critical faculty.
My fingers are not accustomed to this sort of work.
I feel a certain calm in the face of death.
Contemporaries of Frédéric Chopin
Other Musics born within 50 years of Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849).