“This little composition, which is, alas, the last mortal sin of my old age.”

—  Gioachino Rossini

Cette petite composition qui est, hélas, le dernier péché mortel de ma vieillesse.
Introductory note to the Petite Messe Solennelle. Translation from Justin Wintle (ed.) Makers of Nineteenth Century Culture (2002) vol. 2, p. 527.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Nov. 14, 2025. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "This little composition, which is, alas, the last mortal sin of my old age." by Gioachino Rossini?
Gioachino Rossini photo
Gioachino Rossini9
Italian composer 1792–1868

Related quotes

William Blake photo

“In my Brain are studies & Chambers fill'd with books & pictures of old, which I wrote & painted in ages of Eternity before my mortal life;”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

The Letters Of William Blake https://archive.org/details/lettersofwilliam002199mbp (1956), p. 50 <br class="br">1790s

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord photo

“You do not play then at whist, sir! Alas, what a sad old age you are preparing for yourself!”

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838) French diplomat

Vous ne jouez donc pas le whist, monsieur? Hélas! quelle triste vieilesse vous vous préparez!
Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 90.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Alas! alas! how plague-spot like will sin
Spread over the wrung heart it enters in!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Title poem, section VIII.
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Martin Luther photo

“The works of the righteous would be mortal sins if they would not be feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

"Heidelberg Disputation: Thesis 7" (1518), http://bookofconcord.org/heidelberg.php#7

Patrick White photo

“Conversation is imperative if gaps are to be filled, and old age, it is the last gap but one.”

Patrick White book The Tree of Man

The Tree of Man (1955)

Stephen King photo

“the only mortal sin is giving up.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Pierre-Jean de Béranger photo

“Old age doth in sharp pains abound;
We are belabored by the gout,
Our blindness is a dark profound,
Our deafness each one laughs about.
Then reason's light with falling ray
Doth but a trembling flicker cast.
Honor to age, ye children pay!
Alas! my fifty years are past!”

Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780–1857) French poet and chansonnier

Cinquante Ans, C. L. Betts' translation; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 13.

“The years of old age are stalls in the cathedral of life in which for aged men to sit and listen and meditate and be patient till the service is over, and in which they may get themselves ready to say "Amen" at the last, with all their hearts and souls and strength.”

William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 439.

Galileo Galilei photo

“Alas! Your dear friend and servant Galileo has been for the last month hopelessly blind; so that this heaven, this earth, this universe, which I by my marvelous discoveries and clear demonstrations had enlarged a hundred thousand times beyond the belief of the wise men of bygone ages, henceforward for me is shrunk into such a small space as is filled by my own bodily sensations.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

Letter to Élie Diodati (2 January 1638), as translated in The Private Life of Galileo : Compiled primarily from his correspondence and that of his eldest daughter, Sister Maria Celeste (1870) by Mary Allan-Olney, p. 279
Other quotes

Amrita Sher-Gil photo

“These little compositions are the expression of my happiness and that is why perhaps I am particularly fond of them.”

Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941) Hungarian Indian artist

On Her paintings from January to May 1938 done at Saraya including Elephants Bathing.
Sikh Heritage,Amrita Shergil

Related topics