"I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings"
About this Quote
The wording is telling. He doesn’t claim to follow rules, or tradition, or even genius. He follows “my own feelings,” a phrase that sounds soft but signals a hard boundary: the emotional truth of the composer outranks the social approval of the room. This is Enlightenment-era individualism with a performer’s edge. It’s also Mozart, who knew how to charm an audience and still bristled at being treated like a decorative employee.
There’s subtext, too: selective listening. No artist truly ignores praise and blame; they metabolize it. The point is to stop letting it steer the wheel. In a culture that demanded deference, the sentence performs independence, announcing that his compass is internal even when the paycheck is external.
For a modern reader, it lands as a template for creative integrity under constant feedback. Mozart isn’t preaching self-absorption; he’s protecting the fragile, private moment where taste becomes art before it becomes product.
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. (2026, January 16). I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-pay-no-attention-whatever-to-anybodys-praise-or-119790/
Chicago Style
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. "I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-pay-no-attention-whatever-to-anybodys-praise-or-119790/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-pay-no-attention-whatever-to-anybodys-praise-or-119790/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.











