Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Quotes about travel

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was Austrian Romantic composer. Explore interesting quotes on travel.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: 52 quotes86 likes

“I know myself, and I have such a sense of religion that I shall never do anything which I would not do before the whole world; but I am alarmed at the very thoughts of being in the society of people, during my journey, whose mode of thinking is so entirely different from mine (and from that of all good people). But of course they must do as they please. I have no heart to travel with them, nor could I enjoy one pleasant hour, nor know what to talk about; for, in short, I have no great confidence in them. Friends who have no religion cannot be long our friends.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Letter to Leopold Mozart (Mannheim, 2 February 1778), from The letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1769-1791, translated, from the collection of Ludwig Nohl, by Lady [Grace] Wallace (Oxford University Press, 1865, digitized 2006) vol. I, # 91 (p. 164) http://books.google.com/books?vid=0SGwLiCNxu7qZ5ch&id=KEgBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22The+letters+of+Wolfgang+Amadeus+Mozart,+1769-1791%22&hl=en#PRA1-PA164,M1

“A man of ordinary talent will always be ordinary, whether he travels or not; but a man of superior talent will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Letter to Leopold Mozart (11 September 1778), from Wolfgang Amadé Mozart by Georg Knepler (1991), trans. J. Bradford Robinson [Cambridge University Press, 1994, ], p. 12.
Variant: A fellow of mediocre talent will remain a mediocrity, whether he travels or not; but one of superior talent (which without impiety I cannot deny that I possess) will go to seed if he always remains in the same place.

“When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer — say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep — it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

From a letter now regarded as a forgery by Johann Friedrich Rochlitz http://www.aproposmozart.com/Stafford%20--%20Mozart%20and%20genius.rev.ref.pdf, http://www.mozartforum.com/Lore/article.php?id=108, http://www.mozartforum.com/Lore/article.php?id=106 <br class="br">Misattributed