Igor Stravinsky quotes - page 2

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal. (Igor Stravinsky)
Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of being? View quote
Igor Stravinsky
The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading. (Igor Stravinsky)
The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
The past slips from our grasp. It leaves us only scattered things. The bond that united them eludes us. Our imagination usually fills in the void by making use of preconceived theories...Archaeology, then, does not supply us with certitudes, but rather with vague hypotheses. And in the shade of these hypotheses some artists are content to dream, considering them less as scientific facts than as sources of inspiration. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos? View quote
Igor Stravinsky
I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
My childhood was a period of waiting for the moment when I could send everyone connected to it to hell. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say I felt like de Kooning, who was asked to comment on a certain abstract painting, and answered in the negative. He was then told it was the work of a celebrated monkey. 'That's different. For a monkey, it's terrific.' View quote
Igor Stravinsky
It's one of nature's ways that we often feel closer to distant generations than to the generation immediately preceding us. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
As for myself, I need music for hygienic purposes, for the health of my soul. Without music in its best sense there is chaos. For my part, music is a force which gives reason to things, a force which creates organization, which attunes things. Music probably attended the creation of the universe. View quote
Igor Stravinsky