Richard Wagner quotes - page 2

I believe in God; and Mozart, and Beethoven as his only sons. (Richard Wagner)
This possibility, of always drawing from the pristine fount of our own nature, that makes us feel ourselves no more a race, no mere variety of man, but one of Manhood's primal branches, - 'tis this that ever has bestowed on us great men and spiritual heroes, as to whom we have no need to trouble whether fashioners of foreign fatherless civilisations are able to understand and prize them; whilst we again, inspired by the deeds and gifts of our forefathers, and gazing with unclouded eye, are able to rightly estimate those foreigners, and value them according to the spirit of pure Humanity indwelling in their work. View quote
Richard Wagner
This is Alberich's dream come true - Nibelheim, world dominion, activity, work, everywhere the oppressive feeling of steam and fog. View quote
Richard Wagner
Are you afraid of a song, of a picture? View quote
Richard Wagner
Believe me, mankind's truest madness is revealed to him in dreams. All word-craft and poetry is nothing but true dream-interpretation. View quote
Richard Wagner
It's as if they avoid melodies, for fear of having perhaps stolen them from someone else. View quote
Richard Wagner
A moment of weakness comes, for everyone, but then he feels stupid, and listens to his good sense. View quote
Richard Wagner
If a student always follows the teacher's instructions, how can he accomplish something which the teacher cannot accomplish? Now go away and don't interfere, or I'll put you into the fire! View quote
Richard Wagner
I, who rule by means of contracts, am now slave to my contracts. View quote
Richard Wagner
Music has taken a bad turn; these young people have no idea how to write a melody, they just give us shavings. View quote
Richard Wagner
There we see nothing but a clash of interests, whose object is common to all the disputants, common and ignoble: plainly the side most strongly organised, i.e. the most unscrupulous, will bear away the prize. (Richard Wagner)
So let us save and tend and brace our best of forces, to bear a noble cordial to the sleeper when he wakes, as of himself he must at last. View quote
Richard Wagner
At last one crowning horror gives the tortured wretch the needful strength: he wakes, and what he held most real was but a figment of the dæmon of distraught mankind. View quote
Richard Wagner
The July Revolution took place; with one bound I became a revolutionist, and acquired the conviction that every decently active being ought to occupy himself with politics exclusively. View quote
Richard Wagner
I fixed my mind upon some theatre of first rank, that would some day produce it, and troubled myself but little as to where and when that theatre would be found. View quote
Richard Wagner
If gold here figures as the demon strangling manhood's innocence, our greatest poet shews at last the goblin's game of paper money. The Nibelung's fateful ring become a pocket-book, might well complete the eerie picture of the spectral world-controller. View quote
Richard Wagner
Divorce is one of the most financially traumatic things you can go through. Money spent on getting mad or getting even is money wasted. View quote
Richard Wagner
Wherever the fish are, that's where we go. View quote
Richard Wagner
I write music with an exclamation point! View quote
Richard Wagner
I wish I could score everything for horns. View quote
Richard Wagner
Even if I know I shall never change the masses, never transform anything permanent, all I ask is that the good things also have their place, their refuge. (Richard Wagner)
Achievements, seldom credited to their source, are the result of unspeakable drudgery and worries. View quote
Richard Wagner
Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them. View quote
Richard Wagner
Music has taken a bad turn; these young people have no idea how to write a melody, they just give us shavings, which they dress up to look like a lion's mane and shake at us... It's as if they avoid melodies, for fear of having perhaps stolen them from someone else. View quote
Richard Wagner
You, who enjoy the breezes and love, laugh, and live in them: With my golden fist I'll grip all you godly ones! Just as I gave up love, everyone who lives will give it up too! Distracted by gold, you will yearn only for gold! On your beautiful mountain tops, clad in pleasure, you sway, and you despise [me,] the dark goblin, you eternal luxuriants! Watch out! Watch out! Because when you fall into my power, your overdressed women, who despized my wooing, will be forced to my pleasure, without love. Ha ha ha ha! Do you hear? Watch out, Watch out for the army of the night, when the hoarde of goblins rises from the silent depths into the daylight! View quote
Richard Wagner