Beethoven, the Man and the Artist, as Revealed in His Own Words

by Ludwig van Beethoven

(Diary, 1818.)

298. “With tranquility, O God, will I submit myself to changes, and place all my trust in Thy unalterable mercy and goodness.”

(Diary, 1818.)

299. “All misfortune is mysterious and greatest when viewed alone; discussed with others it seems more endurable because one becomes entirely familiar with the things one dreads, and feels as if one had overcome it.”

(Diary, 1816.)

300. “One must not flee for protection to poverty against the loss of riches, nor to a lack of friendship against the loss of friends, nor by abstention from procreation against the death of children, but to reason against everything.”

(Diary, 1816.)

301. “I share deeply with you the righteous sorrow over the death of your wife. It seems to me that such a parting, which confronts nearly every married man, ought to keep one in the ranks of the unmarried.”

(May 20, 1811, to Gottfried Hartel, of Leipzig.)

302. “He who is afflicted with a malady which he can not alter, but which gradually brings him nearer and nearer to death, without which he would have lived longer, ought to reflect that murder or another cause might have killed him even more quickly.”