(In 1812 to his pupil, Archduke Rudolph, whom he warns against too
zealous a devotion to music.)

67. "You will have to play a long time yet before you realize that
you can not play at all."

(July, 1808. Reported by Rust as having been said to a young man
who played for Beethoven.)

68. "One must be something if one wishes to put on appearances."

(August 15, 1812, to Bettina von Arnim.)

69. "These pianoforte players have their coteries whom they often
join; there they are praised continually,--and there's an end of
art!"

(Conversation with Tomaschek, October, 1814.)

70. "We Germans have too few dramatically trained singers for the
part of Leonore. They are too cold and unfeeling; the Italians
sing and act with body and soul."

(1824, in Baden, to Freudenberg, an organist from Breslau.)

71. "If he is a master of his instrument I rank an organist
amongst the first of virtuosi. I too, played the organ a great
deal when I was young, but my nerves would not stand the power of
the gigantic instrument."