Quotes by Franz Liszt

“Music is the heart of life." She speaks love; "without it, there is no possible good and with it everything is beautiful.”

“Brahms' Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his.”

“Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.”

“Sorrowful and great is the artist's destiny.”

“It is impossible to imagine a more complete fusion with nature than that of the Gypsy.”

“The character of instrumental music... lets the emotions radiate and shine in their own character without presuming to display them as real or imaginary representations.”

“The music of the Gypsies belongs in the sphere of improvisation rather than in any other, without which it would have no power to exist.”

“Supreme serenity still remains the Ideal of great Art. The shapes and transitory forms of life are but stages toward this Ideal, which Christ's religion illuminates with His divine light.”

“Beware of missing chances otherwise it may be altogether too late some day.”

“Truth is a great flirt.”

“Life is only a long and bitter suicide, and faith alone can transform this suicide into a sacrifice.”

“Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist.”

“Wasting time is one of the worst faults of the world. Life is so short, every moment is so precious and yet, we live as if life will never end.”

“When you write the story of two happy lovers, place them on the shores of Lake Como. I do not know a district more manifestly blessed by heaven; I've never seen another where the charms of a life o...”

“I carry a deep sadness of the heart which must now and then break out in sound.”

“His playing was free, poetic, replete with imaginative shadings, and, at the same time, characterized by noble, artistic repose. And his technique, his virtuosity? I hesitate to speak if it. It suf...”

“Perhaps the greatest source of wonder in Liszt's life was that he composed anything at all, let alone anything of lasting greatness. The man who, from an early age, had crisscrossed Europe as the g...”

“Composer, teacher, Abbé, Casanova, writer, sage, pioneer and champion of new music, philanthropist, philosopher and one of the greatest pianists in history, Franz Liszt was the very embodiment of t...”