Quote
"Glaubt mir, des Menschen wahrster Wahn wird ihm im Traume aufgetan: all Dichtkunst und Poeterei ist nichts als Wahrtraumdeuterei."
Richard WagnerClever though be the many thoughts expressed by mouth or pen about the — Richard Wagner
"Clever though be the many thoughts expressed by mouth or pen about the invention of money and its enormous value as a civiliser, against such praises should be set the curse to which it has always been doomed in song and legend. If gold here figures as the demon strangling manhoods innocence, our greatest poet shews at last the goblins game of paper money. The Nibelungs fateful ring become a pocket-book, might well complete the eerie picture of the spectral world-controller. By the advocates of our Progressive Civilisation this rulership is indeed regarded as a spiritual, nay, a moral power; for vanished Faith is now replaced by "Credit," that fiction of our mutual honesty kept upright by the most elaborate safeguards against loss and trickery. What comes to pass beneath the benedictions of this Credit we now are witnessing, and seem inclined to lay all blame upon the Jews. They certainly are virtuosi in an art which we but bungle: only, the coinage of money out of nil was invented by our Civilisation itself; or if the Jews are blamable for that, it is because our entire civilisation is a barbaro-judaic medley, in nowise a Christian creation."
Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
author
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor, best known for his operas, although his mature works are often referred to as music dramas. Unlike most composers, Wagner wrote both the libretti and the music for all of his stage works. He first achieved recognition with works in the Romantic tradition of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, but revol
More by Richard Wagner
View all →Richard WagnerQuote
"What "Conservatives," "Liberals" and "Conservative-liberals," and finally "Democrats," "Socialists," or even "Social-democrats" etc., have lately uttered on the Jewish Question, must seem to us a trifle foolish; for none of these parties would think of testing that "Know thyself" upon themselves, not even the most indefinite and therefore the only one that styles itself in German, the "Progress"-party. There we see nothing but a clash of interests, whose object is common to all the disputants, common and ignoble: plainly the side most strongly organised, i.e. the most unscrupulous, will bear away the prize. With all our comprehensive State- and National-Economy, it would seem that we are victims to a dream now flattering, now terrifying, and finally asphyxiating: all are panting to awake therefrom; but it is the dreams peculiarity that, so long as it enmeshes us, we take it for real life, and fight against our wakening as though we fought with death. At last one crowning horror gives the tortured wretch the needful strength: he wakes, and what he held most real was but a figment of the dæmon of distraught mankind. We who belong to none of all those parties, but seek our welfare solely in mans wakening to his simple hallowed dignity; we who are excluded from these parties as useless persons, and yet are sympathetically troubled for them, — we can only stand and watch the spasms of the dreamer, since no cry of ours can pierce to him. So let us save and tend and brace our best of forces, to bear a noble cordial to the sleeper when he wakes, as of himself he must at last."
Richard WagnerQuote
"This is Alberichs dream come true — Nibelheim, world dominion, activity, work, everywhere the oppressive feeling of steam and fog."
Richard WagnerQuote
"Was der Meister nicht kann, vermöcht’ es der Knabe, hätt’ er ihm immer gehorcht Jetzt mach’ dich fort, misch’ dich nicht drein: sonst fällst du mir mit in’s Feuer!"
Richard WagnerQuote
"Hier hilft kein Kluger, das seh’ ich klar: hier hilft dem Dummen die Dummheit allein!"
Richard WagnerQuote
"Der durch Verträge ich Herr, den Verträgen bin ich nun Knecht."
Richard Wagner