Controversial Sayings
1,571 sayings found from the Early Modern era
Constanze is not ugly, but anything but beautiful; all her beauty consists of two little black eyes and a handsome figure.
To win applause one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it.
The French are such asses, they are truly inept, for they have to go abroad for help.
The only thing—I tell you this straight from the heart—that disgusts me in Salzburg is that one can't have any proper social intercourse with those people—and that music does not have a better reputation...
A man of mediocre talents always remains mediocre, may he travel or not--but a man of superior talents, which I cannot deny myself to have without being blasphemous, becomes--bad, if he always stays in the same place.
Forgive me, Majesty. I am a vulgar man! But I assure you, my music is not.
They probably think because I am so small and young, nothing of greatness and class can come out of me; but they shall soon find out.
It is, of course, a money marriage, nothing more. I wouldn't want to enter into this kind of marriage. I wish to make my wife happy and not make my happiness through her.
What annoys me most is that these stupid Frenchmen think I am still just seven years old - because that was my age when they first saw me - (...) they treat me here like a beginner - except the musicians; they know better.
A goodly number of high nobility was present: the Duchess Kickass, the Countess Pisshappy, also the Princess Smellshit with her two daughters, who are married to the two Princes of Mustbelly von Pigtail.
If Germany, my beloved fatherland, of whom you know I am proud, will not accept me, then must I, in the name of God, again make France or England richer by one capable German; — and to the shame of the German nation.
She will never learn the most necessary, most difficult and principal thing in music, that is time, because from childhood she has designedly cultivated the habit of ignoring the beat.
I know myself, and I have such a sense of religion that I shall never do anything which I would not do before the whole world; but I am alarmed at the very thoughts of being in the society of people, during my journey, whose mode of thinking is so en…
My son, to find one man in a 1000 who is your true friend for reasons other than self-interest is one of the greatest wonders of this world.
I should like to know for what reason idleness is so popular with many young people that it is impossible to dissuade them from it either by words or by chastisements.
I beg you most humbly to go on loving me just a little and to make do with these poor congratulations until I get some new drawers made for my small and narrow brainbox in which I can keep the brains that I still intend to acquire.
People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to compositions as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times.
All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak—and speak in such a way that people will remember it.
If I decide to be an idiot, then I'll be an idiot on my own accord.
My present post amounts to about 700 thaler, and when there are rather more funerals than usual, the fees rise in proportion; but when a healthy wind blows, they fall accordingly…