Hector Berlioz famous quotes

03-22-2025

In my opinion, the trombone is the true head of the family of wind instruments, which I have named the 'epic' one. It possesses nobility and grandeur to the highest degree; it has all the serious and powerful tones of sublime musical poetry, from religious, calm and imposing accents to savage, orgiastic outburst. Directed by the will of the master, the trombones can chant like a choir of priests, threaten, utter gloomy sighs, a mournful lament, or a bright hymn of glory; they can break forth into awe-inspiring cries and awaken the dead or doom the living with their fearful voices.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Religious #Powerful #Epic
It is so rare...to find a complete person, with a soul, a heart and an imagination; so rare for characters as ardent and restless as ours to meet and to be matched together, that I hardly know how to tell you what happiness it gives me to know you.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Friendship #Character #Heart
To render my works properly requires a combination of extreme precision and irresistible verve, a regulated vehemence, a dreamy tenderness, and an almost morbid melancholy.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Vehemence #Melancholy #Morbid
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Education #Teacher #Time
Love cannot express the idea of music, while music may give an idea of love
-- Hector Berlioz

#Music #Ideas #Giving
Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Writing #Ideas #Despair
The luck of having talent is not enough; one must also have a talent for luck.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Good Luck #Luck #Talent
If men of genius only knew what love their works inspire!
-- Hector Berlioz

#Men #Inspire #Genius
It is difficult to put into words what I suffered-the longing that seemed to be tearing my heart out by the roots, the dreadful sense of being alone in an empty universe, the agonies that thrilled through me as if the blood were running ice-cold through my veins, the disgust with living, the impossibility of dying. Shakespeare himself never described this torture; but he counts it, in Hamlet, among the terrible of all the evils of existence. I had stopped composing; my mind seemed to become feebler as my feelings grew more intense. I did nothing. One power was left to me-to suffer.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Depression #Running #Heart
Which of the two powers, Love or Music, can elevate man to the sublimest heights? ... It is a problem, and yet it seems to me that this is the answer: 'Love can give no idea of music; music can give an idea of love.' ... Why separate them? They are two wings of the soul.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Men #Wings #Ideas
Heine commenting on the music of Louis Hector Berlioz: He is an immense nightingale, a lark as great as an eagle. . . . The music causes me to dream of fabulous empires, filled with fabulous sins.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Music #Dream #Eagles
Music and love are the wings of the soul.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Wings #Soul #And Love
The trombone is the true head of the family of wind instruments... it has all the serious and powerful tones of sublime musical poetry, from religious, calm and imposing accents to savage, orgiastic outburst.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Music #Religious #Powerful
Time, time - that is our greatest master! Alas, like Ugolino, time devours its own children.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Time #Children #Masters
At least I have the modesty to admit that lack of modesty is one of my failings.
-- Hector Berlioz

#Humility #Pride #Modesty
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. (Le temps est un grand maÃ®tre, dit-on; le malheur est qu'il soit un maÃ®tre inhumain qui tue ses Ã©lÃ¨ves.)
-- Hector Berlioz

#Teacher #Great Teacher #Pupils

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