Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky famous quotes

03-25-2025

Truly there would be reason to go mad were it not for music.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Music #Mad #Would Be
There is no doubt that even the greatest musical geniuses have sometimes worked without inspiration. This guest (inspiration) does not always respond to the first invitation. We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it half-way, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their disinclination.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Believe #Inspiration #Artist
Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Music #Work #Inspiration
A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Artist #Self #Hands
To regret the past, to hope in the future, and never to be satisfied with the present: that is what I spend my whole life doing
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Regret #Past #Whole Life
Even in the works of the greatest master, the organic sequence can fail and then a skillful join must be made.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Failing #Masters #Made
If that condition of mind and soul, which we call inspiration, lasted long without intermission, no artist could survive it. The strings would break and the instrument be shattered into fragments.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Inspiration #Artist #Long
When Brahms is in extra good spirits, he sings, "The grave is my joy".
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Music #Joy #Spirit
â€¦You see, my dear friend, I am made up of contradictions, and I have reached a very mature age without resting upon anything positive, without having calmed my restless spirit either by religion or philosophy. Undoubtedly I should have gone mad but for music. Music is indeed the most beautiful of all Heaven's gifts to humanity wandering in the darkness. Alone it calms, enlightens, and stills our souls. It is not the straw to which the drowning man clings; but a true friend, refuge, and comforter, for whose sake life is worth living
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Beautiful #True Friend #Philosophy
I sit down to the piano regularly at nine-o'clock in the morning and Mesdames les Muses have learned to be on time for that rendezvous.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Music #Morning #Piano
How can one express the indefinable sensations that one experiences while writing an instrumental composition that has no definite subject? It is a purely lyrical process. It is a musical confession of the soul, which unburdens itself through sounds just as a lyric poet expresses himself through poetry...As the poet Heine said, 'Where words leave off, music begins.'
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Music #Writing #Soul
It is already a great thing if the main ideas and general outline of a work come without any racking of brains, as the result of that supernatural and inexplicable force we call inspiration.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Inspiration #Ideas #Brain
After the last notes of Gotterdammerung I felt as though I had been let out of prison.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Lasts #Prison #Notes
What I have set down in a moment of ardour I must then critically examine. Sometimes I must do myself violence before I can mercilessly erase things thought out with love.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Violence #Sometimes #Moments
Sometimes I observe with curiosity that uninterrupted activity which, independent of the subject of any conversation I may be carrying on, continues its course in that department of my brain that is devoted to music.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Independent #Curiosity #Brain
I feel I shall live a long time.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Long #Feels
Madam, you ask me how I compose. I compose sitting down.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Music #Sitting #Sitting Down
The creative process is like music which takes root with extraordinary force and rapidity
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Roots #Creative #Force
The muse doesn't come without being called.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Life #Muse
Mozart is the highest, the culminating point that beauty has attained in the sphere of music.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Spheres
What I need is to believe in myself againâ€” for my faith has been greatly undermined; it seems to me my role is over.
-- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

#Believe #Roles #Needs

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