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

Musicians

Born in Poland in 1810

Born in Poland in 1810, Frederic Chopin devoted his entire creative life to the piano, transforming it into a vehicle for poetry. Writing almost exclusively for solo keyboard, he revolutionized the nocturne, ballade, and etude, expanding the instrument's expressive range through innovative harmony and sensitivity. He left Warsaw at twenty, settled in Paris, and died at thirty-nine, leaving behind a body of work that remains the cornerstone of the piano repertoire.

View this figure's profile

Source: Chopin's Letters, collected by Henryk OpienskiVerified

Born in Poland in 1810's Other Quotes

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.

Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars.

I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.

Related Quotes

It is easy to vanquish bandits in the mountains; it is hard to vanquish the bandits in one's heart.

-- Wang Yangming

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

-- Albert Camus

A great epoch demands a great art.

-- Amedeo Modigliani

Illness, insanity, and death were the dark angels that kept watch over my cradle.

-- Edvard Munch

What I have in my heart and soul must find a way out. That's the reason for music.

-- Born in Bonn in 1770