Top 100 Ludwig van Beethoven Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

Featured in: Wisdom Quotes, Mastery Quotes, Art Quotes

2. “Music can change the world.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

3. “Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

Featured in: Music Quotes, Creativity Quotes, Quotes About Thinking, Philosophy Quotes, Culture Quotes

4. “What I have in my heart and soul – must find a way out. That’s the reason for music.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

Featured in: Music Quotes, Aesthetic Quotes, Quotes About Feelings

5. “Only art and science can raise men to the level of God.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

6. “To play without passion is inexcusable!”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

7. “I know no other sign of superiority than Goodness.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

8. “Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

Featured in: Music Quotes

9. “Then let us all do what is right, strive with all our might toward the unattainable, develop as fully as we can the gifts God has given us, and never stop learning.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

10. “I shall hear in heaven.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

Featured in: Heaven Quotes

11. “Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. Although the spirit be not master of that which it creates through music, yet it is blessed in this creation, which, like every creation of art, is mightier than the artist.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

Featured in: Music Quotes, Art Quotes

12. “Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears form the eyes of woman.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

13. “I am resolved to rise superior to every obstacle. With whom need I be afraid of measuring my strength? I will take Fate by the throat. It shall not overcome me. O how beautiful it is to be alive – would that I could live a thousand times!”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

Featured in: Fate Quotes

14. “This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

15. “Wherever you are, I am there also.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

16. “To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

17. “Life would be flat without music. It is the background to all I do. It speaks to the heart in its own special way like nothing else.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

18. “Hide your secret even from the closest friend; learn to be silent...”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

19. “I would rather write 10,000 notes than a single letter of the alphabet.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

20. “Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

21. “Oh continue to love me – never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved. ever thine ever mine ever ours.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

22. “I will seize fate by the throat; it shall certainly never wholly overcome me.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

23. “It is the power of music to carry one directly into the mental state of the composer.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

24. “Love, and love alone, is capable of giving you a happier life.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

25. “There is no loftier mission than to approach the Divinity nearer than other men, and to disseminate the divine rays among mankind.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

26. “What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

27. “Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

28. “No friend have I. I must live by myself alone; but I know well that God is nearer to me than others in my art, so I will walk fearlessly with Him.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

29. “He who understand my music will remain free from the miseries that the other men are dragging with them .”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

30. “There are and always will be thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven!”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

31. “Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

32. “We mortals with immortal minds are only born for sufferings and joys, and one could almost say that the most excellent receive joy through sufferings.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

33. “Only art and science make us suspect the existence of life to a higher level, and maybe also instill hope thereof.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

34. “When I open my eyes I must sigh, for what I see is contrary to my religion, and I must despise the world which does not know that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

35. “The guitar is an orchestra in itself.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

Featured in: Guitar Quotes

36. “I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

37. “Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

38. “Never forget the days I spent with you. Continue to be my friend, as you will always find me yours.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

39. “You’re a happy fellow, for you’ll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

40. “To do good whenever one can, to love liberty above all else, never to deny the truth, even though it be before the throne.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

41. “Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

42. “I love a tree more than a man.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

43. “It is my wish that you may have at better and freer life than I have had. Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience; this was what upheld me in time of misery.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

44. “It seemed unthinkable for me to leave the world forever before I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

45. “Everything should be at once surprising and inevitable.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

46. “Music is the electric soil in which the spirit thinks, lives and invents. All that’s electrical stimulates the mind to flowing surging musical creation. I am electrical by nature.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

47. “My heart is full of many things there are moments when I feel that speech is nothing after all.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

48. “In the world of art, as in the whole of creation, freedom and progress are the main objectives.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

49. “If I contemplate myself as part of the Universe: what am I?”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

50. “I can live only wholly with you or not at all.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven