Quotes from Robert Schumann

From a pound of iron, that costs little, a thousand watch-springs can be made, whose value becomes prodigious. The pound you have received from the Lord,--use it faithfully.

By means of industry and perseverance you will rise higher and higher.

You will be most readily cured of vanity or presumption by studying the history of music, and by hearing the master pieces which have been produced at different periods.

You should neither play bad compositions, nor, unless compelled, listen to them.

Look deeply into life, and study it as diligently as the other arts and sciences.

Let your intimate friends be chosen from such as are better informed than yourself.

If all would play first violin, we could not obtain an orchestra. Therefore esteem every musician in his place.

Talent works, genius creates.

the study of jurisprudence, by which I must earn my bread, has so withered and frozen the flowers of my fancy that they will never again seek the light. (To his Mother, November 11, 1829)

To poetry belongs the golden, decisive word. Other arts have accepted nature herself as arbiter, from whom they have borrowed their forms. Music is the orphan whose father and mother no one can determine, and it may well be that precisely in this mystery lies the source of its beauty.

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts – such is the destiny of the artist.

Thus it is ever in life. The aims we once pursued no longer satisfy us; we aim, we strive, we aspire, until sight fails, and mind and body find rest in the grave.

My whole life has been a twenty years struggle between poetry and prose, or, if you like to call it so, Music and Law.

My indifference to money and my spendthrift ways are disgraceful. You have no idea how reckless I am; how often I practically throw money out of the window. I am always making good resolutions, but the next minute I forget and give the waiter eightpence.

Mendelssohn I consider the first musician of the day; I doff my hat to him as my superior. He plays with everything, especially with the grouping of the instruments in the orchestra, but with such ease, delicacy and art, with such mastery throughout.

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist.

Talent works, genius creates.

You write to become immortal, or because the piano happens to be open, or you've looked into a pair of beautiful eyes.

My symphonies would have reached Opus 100 if I had but written them down... Sometimes I am so full of music, and so overflowing with melody, that I find it simply impossible to write down anything.

My heart pounds sickeningly and I turn pale... I often feel as if I were dead... I seem to be losing my mind.

Send light to the dark hearts of men, that is the duty the artist.

Art was not created as a way to riches. Strive to become a true artist; all else will take care of itself.

The aesthetic principle is the same in every art, only the material differs.

From a pound of iron, that costs little, a thousand watch-springs can be made, whose value becomes prodigious. The pound you have received from the Lord, --use it faithfully.