Richard Wagner

You are not only a musician of lofty heights, but a human being who could brook ruthless showers of criticism, unlike most other human beings.

"I have been told that Wagner's music is better than it sounds."

—Mark Twain

"Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches-he has made music sick....Wagner's art is diseased."

—Friedrich Nietzsche

"Happily for Wagner, he is endowed with a temper so insolent that criticism cannot touch his heart-even admitting that he has heart, which I doubt."

—Georges Bizet