Igor Stravinsky Quotes

A good composer does not imitate; he steals. 
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. 
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. 
Igor Stravinsky 

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge. 
Igor Stravinsky 

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it. 
Igor Stravinsky 

Just as appetite comes from eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning. 
Igor Stravinsky 

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal. 
Igor Stravinsky 

Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time. 
Igor Stravinsky 

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. 
Igor Stravinsky 

The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do. 
Igor Stravinsky 

What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators. 
Igor Stravinsky