Ludwig van Beethoven

I would rather be a tree than a man.

The world is a stage, and I am the actor.

I am a composer, not a politician.

I will show the world that I am a great artist.

I despise the man who does not make his own music.

I wish I had been born a century later.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

Oh you people who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem so to you. From childhood on, my heart and mind were bent on kindly feelings, and I was ever eager to accomplish great deeds. But think that for six years now I have been hopelessly afflicted, made worse by senseless physicians, cheated year after year in the hope of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady (whose cure will take years or, perhaps, be impossible).

It was impossible for me to say to men speak louder, shout, for I am deaf.

Ah how could I possibly admit such an infirmity in the one sense which should have been more perfect in me than in others[?]

Ah it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt called upon me to produce, and so I endured this wretched existence.

How great was the humiliation when one who stood beside me heard the distant sound of a shepherd's pipe, and I heard nothing; or heard the shepherd singing, and I heard nothing. Such experiences brought me to the verge of despair;--but little more and I should have put an end to my life.

Do you think I give a damn about your and your pathetic violin?

Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have admit to yourself your own errors.

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

Never break the silence if it is not to improve upon it.

There ought to be but one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art-works, and from which he could carry away whatever he needed. As it is, one must be half a tradesman.

I never write a work continuously, without interruption.

I have never thought of writing for renown and glory. What I have in my heart must out; that is why I write.