Beethoven Quotes

“Ordinary psyches often react to bad news with a momentary thrill, seeing the world, for once, in jagged clarity, as if lightning has just struck. But then darkness and dysfunction rush in. A mind such as Beethoven's remains illumined, or sees in the darkness shapes it never saw before, which inspire rather than terrify. This altered shape (raptus, he would say) makes art of the shapes, while holding in counterpoise such dualities as intellect and intuition, the conscious and the unconscious, mental health and mental disorder, the conventional and the unconventional, complexity and simplicity.”
― Edmund Morris, Beethoven: The Universal Composer

“Challenge, to Beethoven, was inspirational: the more difficult a problem, the more it excited him. “Difficulty is beautiful, good, great.” In the congenial world of music theory, this led to beauty and order.”
― Edmund Morris, Beethoven: The Universal Composer