According to his biographer:
Karajan seems to have spent the greater part of his like seeking the one thing he believed would make him completely happy: absolute mastery over his own destiny.
Richard Osborne, Herbert von Karajan: A Life in Music, Northeastern University Press, 1998, p. 33
Related: How other great artists became great:
Igor Stravinsky and Peter Tchaikovsky.
Auguste Rodin.
Ludwig von Beethoven and Michelangelo.
Franz Liszt.
Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Richard Wagner.
Maria Callas.