Gustav Mahler
Tradition is tending the flame, not worshiping the ashes.Collection: Flames
We all return. It is this certainty that gives meaning to life and it does not make the slightest difference whether or not in a later incarnation we remember the former life. What counts is not the individual and his comfort, but the great aspiration to the perfect and the pure which goes on in each incarnation.Collection: Differences
But it's peculiar, as soon as I am in the midst of nature and by myself, everything that is base and trivial vanishes without trace. On such days nothing scares me; and this helps me again and again.Collection: Scare
It should be one’s sole endeavor to see everything afresh and create it anew.Collection: Should
In Bach, the vital cells of music are united as the world is in God.Collection: Cells
Tradition is the spreading of fire and not the veneration of ashes.Collection: Fire
Don't bother to look, I've composed all this already.Collection: Musical
Tradition is laziness.Collection: Laziness
A full cup of wine at the right time is worth more than all the kingdoms of this earth!Collection: Wine
I don't let myself get carried away by my own ideas; I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.Collection: Ideas
Only when I experience do I compose - only when I compose do I experience.Collection: Experience
For the last month I have been a strict vegetarian. The moral effects of this regime are immense, owing to the voluntary subjugation of the flesh and the resulting absence of desires. You will appreciate how full I am of this idea when I tell you that I expect it to work the regeneration of mankind. I advise you to change over to a natural way of life, with proper nourishment (wholemeal bread), and you will soon feel the benefit.Collection: Ideas
Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.Collection: Nature
A true personality . . . is like a robust organism that, with unconscious sureness, seeks out and digests the nourishment appropriate to it and vigorously rejects that which is unsuitable.Collection: Personality
It is always the same with me; only when I experience something do I compose, and only when composing do I experience! After all, a musician's nature can hardly be expressed in words.Collection: Musician
Life's been nothing but paperwork.Collection: Paperwork