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

by Ludwig van Beethoven

(Diary, 1816.)

314. “He who is above,—O, He is, and without Him there is nothing.”

(Diary.)

315. “Go to the devil with your ‘gracious Sir!’ There is only one who can be called gracious, and that is God.”

(About 1824 or 1825, to Rampel, a copyist, who, apparently, had been
a little too obsequious in his address to Beethoven. [As is customary
among the Viennese to this day. H. E. K.])

316. “What is all this compared with the great Tonemaster above! above! above! and righteously the Most High, whereas here below all is mockery,—dwarfs,—and yet Most High!!”

(To Schott, publisher in Mayence, in 1822—the same year in which
Beethoven copied the Egyptian inscription.)

317. “There is no loftier mission than to approach the Divinity nearer than other men, and to disseminate the divine rays among mankind.”

(August, 1823, to Archduke Rudolph.)

318. “Heaven rules over the destiny of men and monsters (literally, human and inhuman beings), and so it will guide me, too, to the better things of life.”