Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them.

Achievements, seldom credited to their source, are the result of unspeakable drudgery and worries

How absurd these critics must seem to me, who in their modern wantonness have become so ingenious. They want to interpret my Tannhauser as specifically Christian and impute to him a tendency to impotent glorification!

I am fond of them, of the inferior beings of the abyss, of those who are full of longing.

Though German art can never be Bavarian, but simply German, yet Munich is the capital of this German Art; here, under shelter of a Prince who kindles my enthusiasm, to feel myself a native and member of the people was, to me, the homeless wanderer, a deep, a genuine need.

Richard Wagner, a musician who wrote music which is better than it sounds.