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Egotistical composers: the best big-headed musical quotes

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 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 quotes: Berlioz

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

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

Haydn: "But all the world understands my language!"
7. Egotistical composers: Stravinsky

Stravinksy: "I don't write modern music. I only write good music."
8. Egotistical composers: Rossini

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

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

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

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

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