Joy is not in things; it is in us
Many's the man/ who thought himself wise/ but what he needed/ he did not know...
Parsifal is on his way to the temple of the Grail Knights and says: βI hardly move, yet far I seem to have comeβ, and the all-knowing Gurnemanz replies: βYou see, my son, time turns here into space
I am fond of them, of the inferior beings of the abyss, of those who are full of longing.
Here, everything is tragic through and through, and the will, that fain would shape a world according to its wish, at last can reach no greater satisfaction than the breaking of itself in dignified annulment.
I was in a state of gnawing, sensuous agitation that excited continually both blood and nerves when I sketched out the music for 'Tannhauser' and brought it to completion.
The patriot subordinates himself to his State in order to raise it above all other States and thus, as it were, to find his personal sacrifice repaid with ample interest through the might and greatness of his fatherland.
I can't distract myself enough here, for sketches to a new opera are constantly buzzing around in my head, to the extent that I need all my strength to wrest myself from them.
In no State is there a weightier law than that which centers its stability in the supreme hereditary power of one particular family, unconnected and un-commingling with any other lineage in that State.
Achievements, seldom credited to their source, are the result of unspeakable drudgery and worries.
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.
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.
We find personal success and great, if not enduring, influence on the outer fashioning of the world allotted to the violent, the passionate individual who, unchaining the elemental principles of human impulse under favoring circumstances, points out to greed and self-indulgence the speedy pathways to their satisfaction.
What manner of thing this 'public opinion' is, should be best known to those who have its name forever in their mouths and erect the regard for it into a positive article of religion. Its self-styled organ in our times is the 'Press.'
I write music with an exclamation point!
How absurd these critics must seem to me, who in their modern wantonness have become so ingenious. They want to interpret my Tannhauser as specifically Christian and impute to him a tendency to impotent glorification!
I wish I could score everything for horns.
I have only a mind to live, to enjoy - i.e., to work as an artist, and produce my works; but not for the muddy brains of the common herd.
Though German art can never be Bavarian, but simply German, yet Munich is the capital of this German Art; here, under shelter of a Prince who kindles my enthusiasm, to feel myself a native and member of the people was, to me, the homeless wanderer, a deep, a genuine need.
The measures and acts which show us violently disposed towards the outer world can never stay without a violent reaction on ourselves.
