Gustav Mahler Quotes

I have become a different person. I don`t know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier.

Spring won`t let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.

I hope you will no longer accuse me of a lack of delicacy. as I now count on your understanding.

I was a crazy young man who let himself be blinded by his passions and obeyed only the impulses of the moment.

Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one`s contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one`s way.

I also had a brother who was like me a musician and a composer. A man of great talent, far more gifted than I. He died very young... he killed himself in the prime of his life.

Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.

The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form.

To judge a composer`s work, one must consider it as a whole.

An operetta is simply a small and gay opera.

It`s not just a question of conquering a summit previously unknown, but of tracing, step by step, a new pathway to it.

If you think you`re boring your audience, go slower not faster.

I live like a Hottentot. I cannot exchange one sensible word with anyone.

There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.

When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.

With the coming of spring, I am calm again.

The real art of conducting consists in transitions.

It is strange how one feels drawn forward without knowing at first where one is going.

I beg of you... never assume an inner or an outer pose, never a disguise.

Discipline, work. Work, discipline.

In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.

The impressions of the spriritual experiences gave my future life its form and content.

I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

The longer you live and the more you learn, the more clearly you will feel the difference between the few men who are truly great and the mere virtuosi.

I don`t let myself get carried away by my own ideas - I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.

The point is not to take the world`s opinion as a guiding star but to go one`s way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.

The further the music develops, the more complex the apparatus used by the composer to express his thoughts becomes.

What I wanted and what I visualized while composing has not always been realized.

If I weren`t the way I am, I shouldn`t write my symphonies.

It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces.

You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.

Destiny smiles upon me but without making me the least bit happier.

In the theatrical works we love and admire the most, the ending of the drama generally takes place offstage.

Don`t bother looking at the view - I have already composed it.

Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.

A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.

Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking.

Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand.

It should be one`s sole endeavor to see everything afresh and create it anew.

All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish.

The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks.

Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle.