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Creativity Quote by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings"

About this Quote

Mozart’s line reads like swagger, but it’s really a survival tactic from a working artist who spent his life being judged by patrons, courts, critics, and fickle public taste. “Praise or blame” aren’t just abstract opinions in his world; they’re currency. They decide commissions, salaries, reputations, whether you’re invited back or quietly replaced. Saying he “pays no attention” is a defiant refusal to let that market logic colonize the inner workshop where music is actually made.

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.

More Quotes by Wolfgang Add to List
Ignore Praise or Blame: Follow Your Own Feelings
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About the Author

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (January 27, 1756 - December 5, 1791) was a Musician from Austria.

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