A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

An operetta is simply a small and gay opera.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

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 Quote

Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

Don't bother looking at the view - I have already composed it.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

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 Quote

I beg of you... never assume an inner or an outer pose, never a disguise.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

I don't let myself get carried away by my own ideas - I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

I have become a different person. I don't know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

I hope you will no longer accuse me of a lack of delicacy. as I now count on your understanding.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

I live like a Hottentot. I cannot exchange one sensible word with anyone.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

I was a crazy young man who let himself be blinded by his passions and obeyed only the impulses of the moment.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

In the theatrical works we love and admire the most, the ending of the drama generally takes place offstage.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

It is strange how one feels drawn forward without knowing at first where one is going.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

It's not just a question of conquering a summit previously unknown, but of tracing, step by step, a new pathway to it.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

The further the music develops, the more complex the apparatus used by the composer to express his thoughts becomes.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.
- Gustav Mahler Quote

With the coming of spring, I am calm again.
- Gustav Mahler Quote