Frédéric Chopin Quotes

Polish composer and pianist (1810–1849)

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Frédéric Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849) was a Polish pianist and composer of classical music who lived in Paris from age 21. He wrote almost solely for piano and remains the most widely played composer for that instrument. He also wrote for violin and viola. His music ranged from patriotic, melancholy, passionate to simple and beautiful, and he was known as a great teacher of piano.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Native Name: Fryderyk Franciszek Szopen

Alternative Names: Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin • Frédéric François Chopin • Fryderyk Chopin • Frederic Francois Chopin • Frederic Chopin • Fr. Chopin • Chopin

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Zaman en iyi yargıç, sabır eşsiz bir öğretmendir.

Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.

Prostota to ostatnie osiągnięcie. Po zagraniu ogromnej ilości nut i większej ilości nut, prostota staje się ukoronowaniem sztuki.

(Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.)

I'm glad that the secret is submerged in my heart, that in me is the end of what is for you the beginning. And be glad that you have in me an abyss into which you can cast everything without fear - as if into a second self - because your spirit has long lain there at the very bottom. I keep your letters like a ribbon from a mistress. I have the ribbon; write to me, I'll caress you again in a week.

Play Mozart in memory of me— and I will hear you.

When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher.

I tell my piano the things I used to tell you

I have met Rossini, Cherubini, Baillot, etc.—also Kalkbrenner. You would not believe how curious I was about Herz, Liszt, Hiller, etc. — They are all zero beside Kalkbrenner. I confess that I have played like Herz, but would wish to play like Kalkbrenner. If Paganini is perfection, Kalkbrenner is his equal, but in quite another style.

Translation 1: I am going to wash now; don't kiss me, I'm not washed yet. You? If I were smeared with the oils of Byzantium, you would not kiss me unless I forced you to it by magnetism. There's some kind of power in nature. Today you will dream of kissing me! I have got to pay you out for the horrible dream you gave me last night.

Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano!

I don't know where there can be so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many virtuosi.

Here you doubtless observe my tendency to do wrong against my will. As something has involuntarily crept into my head through my eyes, I love to indulge it, even though it may be all wrong.

Give me a kiss, dearest lover. I'm certain that you still love me, and I fear you always, like some tyrant over me. I don't know why, but I fear you. Upon my word, only you have power over me, you and... no one else.

How strange! This bed on which I shall lie has been slept on by more than one dying man, but today it does not repel me! Who knows what corpses have lain on it and for how long? But is a corpse any worse than I? A corpse too knows nothing of its father, mother or sisters or Titus. Nor has a corpse a sweetheart. A corpse, too, is pale, like me. A corpse is cold, just as I am cold and indifferent to everything. A corpse has ceased to live, and I too have had enough of life…. Why do we live on through this wretched life which only devours us and serves to turn us into corpses? The clocks in the Stuttgart belfries strike the midnight hour. Oh how many people have become corpses at this moment! Mothers have been torn from their children, children from their mothers - how many plans have come to nothing, how much sorrow has sprung from these depths, and how much relief!… Virtue and vice have come in the end to the same thing! It seems that to die is man’s finest action - and what might be his worst? To be born, since that is the exact opposite of his best deed. It is therefore right of me to be angry that I was ever born into this world! Why was I not prevented from remaining in a world where I am utterly useless? What good can my existence bring to anyone? … But wait, wait! What’s this? Tears? How long it is since they flowed! How is this, seeing that an arid melancholy has held me for so long in its grip? How good it feels - and sorrowful. Sad but kindly tears! What a strange emotion! Sad but blessed. It is not good for one to be sad, and yet how pleasant it is - a strange state…

My earthly body has been a terrible disappointment to me.