Franz Liszt Quotes - Page 2

I am not fond of speaking about politics because I don't have in my possession an army of 200,000 soldiers.

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.

Sorrowful and great is the artist's destiny.

Brahms' Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his.

As for famous men who were not artists, I am beginning to be tired of them. Those poor little scoundrels who are called great men fill me with nothing but overwhelming horror.

It is impossible to imagine a more complete fusion with nature than that of the Gypsy.

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.

When you write the story of two happy lovers, let the story be set on the banks of Lake Como.

It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.

In Hungary all native music, in its origin, is divided naturally into melody destined for song or melody for the dance.

Oral musical traditions are rooted in assured and scrupulous faith.

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.

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.

Companions, in misery and worse, that is what we all are, and to try to change this substantially avails us nothing.

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.

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.

In the oldest chronicles of the times conserved in Hungary, reports will be found of Gypsy music, but never of any other, either Magyar, Slavic or Jewish.

A theatre receives recognition through its initiative, which is indispensable for first-rate performances.

The public is always good.

The first impulse of a great number of civilized musicians... is to protest ourdeclaration that the music in Hungary belongs to the Gypsies.

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.