“The great artistic figure of the nineteenth century, who impressed himself deeply upon the imagination of Europe, was Beethoven. Beethoven is visualised as a man in a garret, poor, unkempt, neglected, rough, ugly; he has thrown away the world, he will have none of its wealth, and although the rewards are offered, he rejects them. He rejects them in order to fulfill himself, in order to serve the inner vision, in order to express that which demands, with an absolute imperative force, that it be expressed. The worst thing that a man can do is to ‘sell out’, to betray an ideal. That alone is despicable – despicable because the only thing which makes values values, which makes some things right and others wrong, the only thing which can justify conduct, is this inner vision.”

− Isiah Berlin −