Felix Mendelssohn

“Even if in the world there are faults, you must not be sad, for in the world there is music.”

“The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.”

“This is what I think art is and what I am striving for. It is a sole, intense, and continuous feeling.”

“To me, the Chaconne is one of the most wonderful, incomprehensible pieces of music. On a single staff, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and the most powerful feelings.”

“Life and art are not two different things.”

“People often complain that music is too ambiguous, that what they should think when they hear it is so unclear, whereas everyone understands words. With me, it is exactly the reverse.”

“Though everything else may appear shallow and repulsive, even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from town, country, earth, and all worldly things, that it is truly a blessed gift of God.”

“Ever since I began to compose, I have remained true to my starting principle: not to write a page because Finck or somebody else thinks it is beautiful, but because I think it is beautiful.”

“It is a great sorrow, which is not to be described, to see a life of promise torn and ruined.”

“I dislike nothing more than finding fault with a man's nature or talent; it only depresses and worries and does no good.”

“What the music I love expresses to me, is not thought too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary, too definite.”

“The letters of the great artists, like the letters of all great men, are a sacred treasure.”