Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking.
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More quotes from Gustav Mahler
If I weren’t the way I am, I shouldn’t write my symphonies.
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A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.
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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.
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Don’t bother looking at the view – I have already composed it.
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I have become a different person. I don’t know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier.
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All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish.
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Discipline, work. Work, discipline.
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It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces.
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It’s not just a question of conquering a summit previously unknown, but of tracing, step by step, a new pathway to it.
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Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking.
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If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.
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I live like a Hottentot. I cannot exchange one sensible word with anyone.
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You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.
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I don’t let myself get carried away by my own ideas – I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.
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Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one’s contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one’s way.
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Destiny smiles upon me but without making me the least bit happier.
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I beg of you… never assume an inner or an outer pose, never a disguise.
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Spring won’t let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.
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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.
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An operetta is simply a small and gay opera.
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Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.
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Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.
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With the coming of spring, I am calm again.
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It should be one’s sole endeavor to see everything afresh and create it anew.
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I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.
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The real art of conducting consists in transitions.
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Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand.
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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.
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The impressions of the spriritual experiences gave my future life its form and content.
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In the theatrical works we love and admire the most, the ending of the drama generally takes place offstage.
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What I wanted and what I visualized while composing has not always been realized.
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I was a crazy young man who let himself be blinded by his passions and obeyed only the impulses of the moment.
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To judge a composer’s work, one must consider it as a whole.
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I hope you will no longer accuse me of a lack of delicacy. as I now count on your understanding.
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Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle.
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In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.
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If you think you’re boring your audience, go slower not faster.
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The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form.
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It is strange how one feels drawn forward without knowing at first where one is going.
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The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks.
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The further the music develops, the more complex the apparatus used by the composer to express his thoughts becomes.
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When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.
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There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.
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