Frederic Chopin

As long as I have health and strength, I will gladly work all my days.

— Frederic Chopin

Messieurs, I should like to be granted the favour of performing at one of your admirable concerts, and this I beg to ask of you. Trusting, since I lack other qualifications to obtain this, in your goodwill towards artists, I dare to hope that you will greet my request favourably, I have the honour to be, Messieurs, your very humble servant.Cité Bergère, No. 4

— Frederic Chopin

My piano has not yet arrived. How did you send it? By Marseilles or by Perpignan? I dream music but I cannot make any because here there are not any pianos . . . in this respect this is a savage country.

— Frederic Chopin

I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me.

— Frederic Chopin

I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.

— Frederic Chopin

One needs only to study a certain positioning of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful sounds, to know how to play long notes and short notes and to [attain] certain unlimited dexterity... A well formed technique, it seems to me, [is one] that can control and vary a beautiful sound quality.

— Frederic Chopin

Time is still the best critic, and patience the best teacher.

— Frederic Chopin

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

— Frederic Chopin

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.

— Frederic Chopin

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.

— Frederic Chopin

I could express my feelings more easily if they could be put into the notes of music, but as the very best concert would not cover my affection for you, dear daddy, I must use the simple words of my heart, to lay before you my utmost gratitude and filial affection

— Frederic Chopin

How great a joy I feel in my heart. That a day so pleasant, so dear and glorious begins, a day that I greet with the wish. That long years may pass in happiness. In health and vigour, peacefully, successfully. May the gift of heaven fall richly upon you

— Frederic Chopin

You already know when I'm writing, so don't be surprised if it's short and dry, because I'm too hungry to write anything fat

— Frederic Chopin

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.

— Frederic Chopin

I astonished Kalkbrenner, who at once asked me, was I not a pupil of Field, because I have Cramer's method and Field's touch. (That delighted me.)

— Frederic Chopin

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

— Frederic Chopin

Concerts are never real music, you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art.

— Frederic Chopin

I am cross and depressed, and people bore me with their excessive attentions. I can't breathe, I can't work; I feel alone, alone, alone, although I am surrounded. There are a whole lot of ladies, 70 to 80 year-old lords, but no young folk: they are all out shooting. One can't get out of doors because it has been raining and blowing for several days.

— Frederic Chopin

I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.

— Frederic Chopin

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.

— Frederic Chopin

Man is never always happy, and very often only a brief period of happiness is granted him in this world; so why escape from this dream which cannot last long?

— Frederic Chopin