The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.

Honour is external conscience, and conscience is inward honour.

If God made the world, I would not be that God, for the misery of the world would break my heart.

Pride is generally censured and decried, but mainly by those who have nothing to be proud of.

If a man sets out to hate all the miserable creatures he meets, he will not have much energy left for anything else; whereas he can despise them, one and all, with the greatest ease.

No greater mistake can be made than to imagine that what has been written latest is always the more correct; that what is written later on is an improvement on what was written previously; and that every change means progress.

What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity.