Gustav Mahler Quotes

Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best Gustav Mahler Quotes. The wide variety of quotes available makes it possible to find a quote to suit your needs. You’ve likely heard some of the Gustav Mahler Quotes before, but that’s because they truly are great.

1
With the coming of spring, I am calm again.

With the coming of spring, I am calm again.
Gustav Mahler
2
In the theatrical works we love and admire the most, the ending of the drama generally takes place offstage.
Gustav Mahler
3
The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks.
Gustav Mahler
4
Gustav Mahler
5
Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand.
Gustav Mahler
6
I don’t let myself get carried away by my own ideas – I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.
Gustav Mahler
7
It should be one’s sole endeavor to see everything afresh and create it anew.
Gustav Mahler
8
In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.
Gustav Mahler
9
Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.
Gustav Mahler
10
The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks.
Gustav Mahler
11
All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish.
Gustav Mahler
12
Spring won‘t let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.
Gustav Mahler
13
Gustav Mahler
14
If you think you’re boring your audience, go slower not faster.
Gustav Mahler
15
The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form.
Gustav Mahler
16
The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form.
Gustav Mahler
17
The real art of conducting consists in transitions.
Gustav Mahler
18
Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand.
Gustav Mahler
19
If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.
Gustav Mahler
20
Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.
Gustav Mahler
21
What I wanted and what I visualized while composing has not always been realized.
Gustav Mahler
22
I beg of you… never assume an inner or an outer pose, never a disguise.
Gustav Mahler
23
Don’t bother looking at the view – I have already composed it.
Gustav Mahler
24
Gustav Mahler
25
Destiny smiles upon me but without making me the least bit happier.
Gustav Mahler
26
Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one’s contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one’s way.
Gustav Mahler
27
Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.
Gustav Mahler
28
If I weren’t the way I am, I shouldn’t write my symphonies.
Gustav Mahler
29
With the coming of spring, I am calm again.
Gustav Mahler
30
I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.
Gustav Mahler
31
Gustav Mahler
32
Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle.
Gustav Mahler
33
I beg of you… never assume an inner or an outer pose, never a disguise.
Gustav Mahler
34
There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.
Gustav Mahler
35
When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.
Gustav Mahler
36
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.
Gustav Mahler
37
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.
Gustav Mahler
38
An operetta is simply a small and gay opera.
Gustav Mahler
39
In the theatrical works we love and admire the most, the ending of the drama generally takes place offstage.
Gustav Mahler
40
When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.
Gustav Mahler
41
In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.
Gustav Mahler
42
If I weren’t the way I am, I shouldn’t write my symphonies.
Gustav Mahler
43
Discipline, work. Work, discipline.
Gustav Mahler
44
I was a crazy young man who let himself be blinded by his passions and obeyed only the impulses of the moment.
Gustav Mahler
45
The impressions of the spriritual experiences gave my future life its form and content.
Gustav Mahler
46
The further the music develops, the more complex the apparatus used by the composer to express his thoughts becomes.
Gustav Mahler
47
I hope you will no longer accuse me of a lack of delicacy. as I now count on your understanding.
Gustav Mahler
48
The real art of conducting consists in transitions.
Gustav Mahler
49
Gustav Mahler
50
You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.
Gustav Mahler
51
A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.
Gustav Mahler
52
Spring won‘t let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.
Gustav Mahler
53
The longer you live and the more you learn, the more clearly you will feel the difference between the few men who are truly great and the mere virtuosi.
Gustav Mahler
54
I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder, never welcomed.
Gustav Mahler
55
I have become a different person. I don’t know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier.
Gustav Mahler