Gustav Mahler Quotes

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.

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

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

It is a funny thing, but when I am making music, all the answers I seek for in life seem to be there, in the music. Or rather, I should say, when I am making music, there are no questions and no need for answers.

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

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.

What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.

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

That which draws us by its mystical force; what every created thing, even the very stones, feels with absolute certainty as the center of its being... is the force of love. Christians call this "eternal blessedness." It is a necessity of man for growth and joy.

But it's peculiar, as soon as I am in the midst of nature and by myself, everything that is base and trivial vanishes without trace. On such days nothing scares me; and this helps me again and again.

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

We all return. It is this certainty that gives meaning to life and it does not make the slightest difference whether or not in a later incarnation we remember the former life. What counts is not the individual and his comfort, but the great aspiration to the perfect and the pure which goes on in each incarnation.

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

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

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

In Bach, the vital cells of music are united as the world is in God.

I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder, never welcomed.

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

For the last month I have been a strict vegetarian. The moral effects of this regime are immense, owing to the voluntary subjugation of the flesh and the resulting absence of desires. You will appreciate how full I am of this idea when I tell you that I expect it to work the regeneration of mankind. I advise you to change over to a natural way of life, with proper nourishment (wholemeal bread), and you will soon feel the benefit.

Tradition is tending the flame, not worshiping the ashes.

Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.

Only when I experience do I compose - only when I compose do I experience.

With the coming of spring, I am calm again.

A full cup of wine at the right time is worth more than all the kingdoms of this earth!

To write a symphony is, for me, to construct a world.

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

A true personality . . . is like a robust organism that, with unconscious sureness, seeks out and digests the nourishment appropriate to it and vigorously rejects that which is unsuitable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discipline, work. Work, discipline.

Don't bother looking at the view - I have already composed it.

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

Both my marriages were failures! Number one departed, and number two stayed

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

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

I don't choose what I compose. It chooses me.

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

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.

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

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

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

The real art of conducting consists in transitions.

An operetta is simply a small and gay opera.

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

Don't bother to look, I've composed all this already.