Richard Wagner

The world must be reshaped in my image.

I am a prophet, and my music is the new gospel.

I despise the common herd; they are incapable of understanding my genius.

My art is a divine madness.

I am the last of the romantics, and the first of the moderns.

I live in a perpetual state of nervous excitation, which is both a torment and a source of inspiration.

I believe in the redemption of the world through art.

My dreams are full of music, and I often wake up with melodies in my head.

I am a sick man, and my only cure is art.

I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven.

The Jews are the plastic demons of the decline of mankind.

I am the most German being, I am the German spirit.

I despise everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity.

The error in the art-genre of opera consists herein, that a Means of expression (Music) has been made the end, while the End of expression (the Drama) has been made a means.

The purely human is no longer comprehensible to us: it must appear in some supernatural form.

Animals are better than human beings because they do not hide their passions.

I write music with an exclamation point!

I am the most misunderstood man in the world.

Money is the curse of mankind.

The Jew, who is in fact the most born enemy of pure humanity, is, in general terms, the born enemy of all that is noble in man. He is the born foe of every pure, noble, and spiritual inspiration.