Quotes By Gustav Mahler

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

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

An operetta is simply a small and gay opera.

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

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

I don't let myself get carried away by my own ideas - I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.

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

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

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

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

If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies.

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

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

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

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

The real art of conducting consists in transitions.

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

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

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

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

With the coming of spring, I am calm again.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.