10 Mozart Quotes to Celebrate the Birth of an Inspiration

Mozart quotes may very well be some of the most humorous, enlightening and sometimes even morbid quotes around. While it's true one might not associate comedy or morbidity with Mozart, the fact of the matter is that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was not just a musical genius, he was quite the character. As we celebrate his birth this month, let us get to know him better with these ten quotes.

1. "To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop."

2. "Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpoints to hack post-horses."

3. "I must give you a piece of intelligence that you perhaps already know -- namely, that the ungodly arch-villain Voltaire has died miserably like a dog -- just like a brute. That is his reward!"

4. "All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. Be silent; but when it is necessary, speak  and speak in such a way that people will remember it."

5. "One must not make oneself cheap here - that is a cardinal point - or else one is done. Whoever is most impertinent has the best chance."

6. "I write as a sow piddles."

7. "I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings."

8. "I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness."

9. "We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance."

10. "When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer - say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep - it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them."

A look inside the mind of a genius -- it's not something we come across often. As we remember the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart this month, let's reflect on how faceted his character was with these Mozart quotes above.