Either people walk round dressed as chickens or they…

Music should be an elective experience. You should go, "I'm going to sit down and listen to some Beethoven, by God," and then you…

— Linda Ronstadt

I want to listen to Beethoven and Mozart. I want to read the best minds. I want to live with uplifting art. I don't…

— Alexandra Stoddard

Nobody has Francis Bacon on their walls in their house - or very few people - but sometimes people listen to Beethoven as though…

— Simon Rattle

I cannot listen to Beethoven or Mahler or Chopin or Bach when I write because those composers require you stop what you are doing…

— Antonio Damasio

Beethoven can't really be great because his picture isn't on a bubble gum card.

— Charles M. Schulz

“On behalf of all that is good and melodic, Ludwig van Beethoven, I apologize.”

— Sarah Strohmeyer

“Did Beethoven create his symphonies for his glorification? I don't believe it. I believe he created them because the music in his soul demanded…

— W. Somerset Maugham

I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget this concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I…

— Elie Wiesel

“You'll have a good, secure life when being alive means more to you than security, love more than money, your freedom more than public…

— Wilhelm Reich

The point of recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony unleashes one of the most horrifyingly violent episodes in the history of…

— Susan McClary

“He had said it bravely, and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things.”

— E.M. Forster

“That Beethoven was capable of producing the ultimate musical definition of heroism in this context is itself extraordinary, for he was able to evoke…

— Maynard Solomon

And now, in honour of the 150th anniversary of Beethoven's death, I would like to play 'Clear the Saloon', er, 'Clair de Lune', by…

— Victor Borge

I believe so, but at first he must know. He must know in which spirit Beethoven has composed this piece. He must try to…

— Kurt Masur

For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo.

— Cornel West