Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness.

As for pupils, I can have as many as I choose, but I do not choose to take many. I intend to be better paid than others, and so I wish to have fewer scholars. It is advisable to hang back a little at first, or it is all over with you, and you must pursue the common highway with the rest.

The happy medium - truth in all things - is no longer either known or valued; to gain applause, one must write things so inane that they might be played on barrel-organs, or so unintelligible that no rational being can comprehend them, though on that very account, they are likely to please.

My Constanze is the virtuous, honourable, discreet, and faithful darling of her honest and kindly-disposed Mozart.

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

It is a great consolation for me to remember that the Lord, to whom I had drawn near in humble and child-like faith, has suffered and died for me, and that He will look on me in love and compassion.

Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.

An unmarried man, in my opinion, enjoys only half a life.

I hope never to marry in this way; I wish to make my wife happy, but not to become rich by her means, so I will let things alone and enjoy my golden freedom till I am so well off that I can support both wife and children.

I live in a country where music has very little success, though, exclusive of those who have forsaken us, we have still admirable professors and, more particularly, composers of great solidity, knowledge, and taste.

I know nothing new except that Herr Gellert, the Leipzig poet, is dead, and has written no more poetry since his death.

I cannot write poetically, for I am no poet. I cannot make fine artistic phrases that cast light and shadow, for I am no painter. I can neither by signs nor by pantomime express my thoughts and feelings, for I am no dancer; but I can by tones, for I am a musician.