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    Egotistical composers: the best big-headed musical quotes

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    They're responsible for creating some of the world's masterpieces... so who can blame our favourite composers for being a tad arrogant from time to time? Stubborn, self-righteous, and egotistical, explore the best quotations from the musicians who consider themselves to be greatest of all time.

    1. egotistical composer quotes

      1. Egotistical quotes: Beethoven

      Beethoven: "Prince, what you are, you are by the accident of birth; what I am, I am of myself. There are and there will be thousands of princes. There is only one Beethoven."

    2. egotistical composer quotes

      2. Egotistical quotes: Berlioz

      Berlioz: "My life is to me a deeply interesting romance."

    3. egotistical composer quotes

      3. Egotistical quotes: Sibelius

      Sibelius: "Pay no attention to what critics say; there has never been a statue set up in honour of a critic."

    4. egotistical composer quotes

      4. Egotistical quotes: Mozart

      Mozart: "A man of superior talent (which I cannot deny myself to be without being impious) will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place!"

    5. Egotistical composer quotes Brahms

      5. Egotistical composers: Brahms

      Brahms: "If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon."

    6. egotistical composer quotes

      6. Egotistical quotes: Haydn

      Haydn: "But all the world understands my language!"

    7. egotistical composer quotes stravinsky

      7. Egotistical composers: Stravinsky

      Stravinksy: "I don't write modern music. I only write good music."

    8. egotistical composer quotes rossini

      8. Egotistical composers: Rossini

      Rossini: "Give me a laundry list and I'll set it to music."

    9. egotistical composer quotes

      9. Egotistical quotes: Wagner

      Wagner: "I must have beauty, splendour and light. The world ought to give me what I need!"

    10. egotistical composer quotes cage

      10. Egotistical composers: Cage

      Cage: "I have nothing to say and I am saying - and that is poetry."

    11. egotistical composer quotes

      11. Egotistical quotes: R. Strauss

      R. Strauss: "What I'd like best of all, time and time again, is to set myself to music."

    12. egotistical composer quotes

      12. Egotistical quotes: Tchaikovsky

      Tchaikovsky: "Oh, how difficult it is to make anyone see and feel in music what we see and feel ourselves."

    13. Egotistical composers: Vaughan Williams

      13. Egotistical composers: Vaughan Williams

      Vaughan Williams: "It looks wrong, and it sounds wrong; but it's right."

    14. Egotistical composer quotes Copland

      14. Egotistical composers: Copland

      Copland: "If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong."

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