Johannes Brahms Quotes

19 quotes in 299 categories

• Those who enjoy their own emotionally bad health and who habitually fill their own minds with the rank poisons of suspicion, jealousy and hatred, as…
• If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon.
• It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table.
• Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject. Beethoven varies the melody, harmony and…
• A symphony is no joke.
• Straight-away the ideas flow in upon me, directly from God, and not only do I see distinct themes in my mind's eye, but they are…
• We cling nervously to the melody, but we don't handle it freely, we don't really make anything new out of it, we merely overload it.
• One should never forget that by actually perfecting one piece one gains and learns more than by starting or half-finishing a dozen.
• Ah, that tastes nice. Thank you.
• The idea comes to me from outside of me - and is like a gift. I then take the idea and make it my own…
• Study Bach. There you will find everything.
• The fact that most people do not understand and respect the very best things, such as Mozart's concertos, is what permits men like us to…
• Those are miracles that no merely human brain can work. The artist is merely the sound conduct of a Force that dictates to him what…
• Never criticize the composition of a Royal Highness. You never know who may have written it.
• In him converge all previous streams of tendency, not as into a pool, stagnant, passive, motionless, but as a noble river that received its tributary…
• I sometimes ponder on variation form and it seems to me it ought to be more restrained, purer.
• The only true immortality lies in one's children.
• Reviewer: 'One of your themes was very similar to one of Beethoven's!' Brahms replied, 'Of course it is. Everyone steals - the important thing is…
• Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.

Browse Johannes Brahms Quotes by Category