Luciano Pavarotti Quotes

He is unpardonable, therefore, who cannot distinguish one from the other; but lays on history the paint of poetry, its flattery, fable, and hyperbole: it is just as ridiculous as it would be to clothe one of our robust wrestlers, who is as hard as an oak, in fine purple, or some such meretricious garb, and put paint on his cheeks; how would such ornaments debase and degrade him!

The good historian, then, must be thus described: he must be fearless, uncorrupted, free, the friend of truth and of liberty; one who, to use the words of the comic poet, calls a fig a fig, and a skiff a skiff, neither giving nor withholding from any, from favour or from enmity, not influenced by pity, by shame, or by remorse; a just judge, so far benevolent to all as never to give more than is due to any in his work; a stranger to all, of no country, bound only by his own laws, acknowledging no sovereign, never considering what this or that man may say of him, but relating faithfully everything as it happened.

These men seem not to know that poetry has its particular rules and precepts; and that history is governed by others directly opposite.

I think a life in music is a life beautifully spent and this is what I have devoted my life to.

The effort only shifted me from the frying-pan into the fire.

The truth is hidden from us. Even if a mere piece of luck brings us straight to it, we shall have no grounded conviction of our success; there are so many similar objects, all claiming to be the real thing.

It is not always a matter of wild ovations and legendary performances. Sometimes you are just happy to get through an opera without trouble.

Nothing that has happened has made me feel gloomy or remain depressed. I love my life.

Everything has a beauty peculiar to itself; but if you put one instead of another, the most beautiful becomes ugly, because it is not in its proper place.

The body of the history is only a long narrative, and as such it must go on with a soft and even motion, alike in every part, so that nothing should stand too forward, or retreat too far behind.

People think I'm disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference.

Every day I remind myself of all that I have been given. … With singing, you never know when you are going to lose the voice, and that makes you appreciate the time that you have when you are still singing well. I am always thanking God for another season, another month, another performance.

Ignorance is a dreadful thing and has caused no end of damage to the human race.

In history, nothing fabulous can be agreeable.

I'm not a politician, I'm a musician. I care about giving people a place where they can go to enjoy themselves and to begin to live again. To the man you have to give the spirit, and when you give him the spirit, you have done everything.