All men are selfish, but the vain man is in love with himself. He admires, like the lover his adored one, everything which to others is indifferent.

If you sound great in the practice room, you're practicing the wrong thing. Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

People look with sympathetic eyes only at the blossom and the fruit, and disregard the long period of transition during which the one is ripening into the other.

To acquire money requires valor, to keep money requires prudence, and to spend money well is an art.

To harbor hatred and animosity in the soul makes one irritable, gloomy, and prematurely old.

The silver-leaved birch retains in its old age a soft bark; there are some such men.

Gratitude is a soil on which joy thrives.