“To submit oneself
to its unfathomable laws -
to be able to tame and direct the own mind
by virtue of these laws,
so that it pours out art’s revelations,
that is the isolating principle of art;

to be dissolved by its revelation,
that is devotion to the Divine,
which quietly practises its domination
on the rage of untamed powers,
and so makes imagination
most effective.

Thus, art
always represents Divinity,
and man's relation to it,
is religion;

that which we acquire through art
is from God,
divine inspiration,
which sets human talent a goal
he achieves

... and although the mind
is not in control over that
which he creates through it,
he is nevertheless blissfully happy in this creation,
and so every true creation of art is independent,
more powerful than the artist himself,
and through its appearance returns
to the divine,
and is only connected with man in so far
as that it bears witness
of the conveyance of the divine in him.

Music is the only
non-personified access
to a higher world of knowledge,
which does indeed encompass man,
but which he is not able to grasp.”

Beethoven