Quotes by Franz Liszt

• I conclude that the Wagnerian operas which are already in the repertoire, and other masterworks as well, stand in no further need of my services.
• Inspiration is enough to give expression to the tone in singing, especially when the song is without words.
• Broad paths are open to every endeavour, and a sympathetic recognition is assured to every one who consecrates his art to the divine services of a conviction of a consciousness.
• A person of any mental quality has ideas of his own. This is common sense.
• A theatre receives recognition through its initiative, which is indispensable for first-rate performances.
• As the mother teaches her children how to express themselves in their language, so one Gypsy musician teaches the other. They have never shown any need for notation.
• Beware of missing chances; otherwise it may be altogether too late some day.
• Brahms' Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his.
• Companions, in misery and worse, that is what we all are, and to try to change this substantially avails us nothing.
• The music of the Gypsies belongs in the sphere of improvisation rather than in any other, without which it would have no power to exist.
• We need improvement in the style of performance. There is no more advantage in a musician who plays and conducts than in one who is only a beater of rhythm.
• Truth is a great flirt.
• The public is always good.
• I did not compose my work as one might put on a church vestment... rather it sprung from the truly fervent faith of my heart, such as I have felt it since my childhood.
• The principal task of a conductor is not to put himself in evidence but to disappear behind his functions as much as possible. We are pilots, not servants.
• I foster a sorrowful conception of affection. Make no sacrifices.
• The character of instrumental music... lets the emotions radiate and shine in their own character without presuming to display them as real or imaginary representations.
• Supreme serenity still remains the Ideal of great Art. The shapes and transitory forms of life are but stages toward this Ideal, which Christ's religion illuminates with His divine light.
• In Hungary all native music, in its origin, is divided naturally into melody destined for song or melody for the dance.
• I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.
• Sorrowful and great is the artist's destiny.
• It is impossible to imagine a more complete fusion with nature than that of the Gypsy.
• It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.
• Life is only a long and bitter suicide, and faith alone can transform this suicide into a sacrifice.
• Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist.
• Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.
• Real men are sadly lacking in this world, for when they are put to the test they prove worthless.