In every kind of adversity, the bitterest part of a man's affliction is to remember that he once was happy.

Inconsistency is my very essence; it is the game I never cease to play as I turn my wheel in its ever changing circle, filled with joy as I bring the top to the bottom and the bottom to the top

Music is part of us, and either ennobles or degrades our behavior.

Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it - even if we so desired.

I scarcely know the meaning of your question; much less can I answer it.

If there is anything good about nobility it is that it enforces the necessity of avoiding degeneracy.

I who once wrote songs with keen delight am now by sorrow driven to take up melancholy measures. Wounded Muses tell me what I must write, and elegiac verses bathe my face with real tears. Not even terror could drive from me these faithful companions of my long journey. Poetry, which was once the glory of my happy and flourishing youth, is still my comfort in this misery of my old age.