Beethoven Quotes

“Beethoven can write music thank God - but he can do nothing else on earth.”

“It's funny, because in 1970 I met the Beatles quite by a chance at a party. It was the Beethoven bicentenary, and I was then also playing the Beethoven Sonatas. And that's all they wanted to hear about - I wanted to talk about them, and all they wanted to talk about was Beethoven.”

“Consciousness is our gateway to experience: It enables us to recognize Van Gogh’s starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven’s Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine.”

“He supposed that, except musicians, every one thought Beethoven a bore, as every one except mathematicians thought mathematics a bore.”

“At a certain place in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, he might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry dome, with the dream of immortality in his heart; all the stars seem to glimmer around him, and the earth seems to sink ever deeper downwards.”

“Recommend to your children virtue that alone can make them happy not gold.”

“Music should strike fire from the heart of man and bring tears from the eyes of woman.”

“Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe.”

“I should think that to hear such lovely music as that would really make him feel better."The lady gave a discriminating smile. “I am afraid there are moments in life when even Beethoven has nothing to say to us. We must admit, however, that they are our worst moments.”