Richard Wagner quotes

Joy is not in things; it is in us. (Richard Wagner)
The only form of music is melody, without melody music is not feasible, and music and melody are quite inseparable.
Richard Wagner
I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired.
Richard Wagner
Attack and defence, want and war, victory and defeat, lordship and thraldom, all sealed with the seal of blood: this from henceforth is the History of Man.
Richard Wagner
The oldest, truest, most beautiful organ of music, the origin to which alone our music owes its being, is the human voice.
Richard Wagner
Certain things in Mozart will and can never be excelled.
Richard Wagner
It is necessary for us to explain the involuntary repugnance we possess for the nature and personality of the Jews ... The Jews have never produced a true poet. Heinrich Heine reached the point where he duped himself into a poet, and was rewarded by his versified lies being set to music by our own composers. He was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization.
Richard Wagner
The error in the art-genre of Opera consists herein: a Means of expression (Music) has been made the end, while the End of expression (the Drama) has been made a means.
Richard Wagner
I am writing Parsifal only for my wife - if I had to depend on the German spirit, I should have nothing more to say.
Richard Wagner
Oh, I hate the thought of all those costumes and grease paint! When I think that characters like Kundry will now have to be dressed up, those dreadful artists' balls immediately spring into my mind. Having created the invisible orchestra, I now feel like inventing the invisible theatre!
Richard Wagner
I had translated the first twelve books of the Odyssey. For a while I learnt English also, merely so as to gain an accurate knowledge of Shakespeare; and I made a metrical translation of Romeo's monologue. Though I soon left English on one side, yet Shakespeare remained my exemplar, and I projected a great tragedy which was almost nothing but a medley of Hamlet and King Lear. The plan was gigantic in the extreme; two- and-forty human beings died in the course of this piece, and I saw myself compelled, in its working-out, to call the greater number back as ghosts, since otherwise I should have been short of characters for my last Acts. This play occupied my leisure for two whole years. (Richard Wagner)
Though physiologists are still divided as to whether Man was meant by Nature to feed exclusively on fruits, or also upon flesh-meat, from its first faint glimmerings History shews Man's constant progress as a beast of prey. As such he conquers every land, subdues the fruit-fed races, founds mighty realms by subjugating other subjugators, forms states and sets up civilisations, to enjoy his prey at rest.
Richard Wagner
My child, all is lost for him, and he will never achieve the rank of 'Master' in any land, because someone who is born a master, always has the lowest standing among 'Masters'.
Richard Wagner
The knight's song and direction I found new, but not confused; He left our path, but strode strongly and confidently. When you want to evaluate, according to rules, something which doesn't follow your rules, You have to forget your own ways, And seek out its rules!
Richard Wagner
I am fond of them, of the inferior beings of the abyss, of those who are full of longing.
Richard Wagner
I hate this fast growing tendency to chain men to machines in big factories and deprive them of all joy in their efforts - the plan will lead to cheap men and cheap products.
Richard Wagner
Imagination creates reality.
Richard Wagner
I have long been convinced that my artistic ideal stands or falls with Germany. Only the Germany that we love and desire can help us achieve that ideal.
Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner, a musician who wrote music which is better than it sounds.
Richard Wagner
... forced to flee, he imagines that he is hunting. He does not hear his own cry of pain when he claws into his own flesh; he thinks he is expressing pleasure!
Richard Wagner
Although my mother gave me courage [and power], I do not thank her for yielding to your trickery; prematurely aged, colorless and pale, I hate happy people, and nothing gives me pleasure! (Richard Wagner)
No clever person can help here; I see that clearly. Here, only stupidity can help the stupid one!
Richard Wagner
To my horror I always find only myself in all that I create; the Other, whom I need, I never find: a free man himself must create himself; I can only create slaves!
Richard Wagner
Germany appeared in my eyes a very tiny portion of the earth. I had emerged from abstract Mysticism, and I learnt a love for Matter. Beauty of material and brilliancy of wit were lordly things to me: as regards my beloved music, I found them both among the Frenchmen and Italians. I forswore my model, Beethoven; his last Symphony I deemed the keystone of a whole great epoch of art, beyond whose limits no man could hope to press, and within which no man could attain to independence.
Richard Wagner
It should not be presumed that these people (the Jews), who are so separated from us by their religion, have any right to make our laws. But why blame the Jews? It is we who lack all feeling for our own identity, all sense of honour.
Richard Wagner