The fabric of existence weaves itself whole.

All melodious poets shall be hoarse as street ballads, when once the penetrating keynote of nature and spirit is sounded-the earth-beat, sea-beat, heart-beat, which make the tune to which the sun rolls, and the globule of blood and the sap of the trees.

Every great inspiration is but an experiment - though every experiment we know, is not a great inspiration.

For the man of talent affects to call his transgressions of the laws of sense trivial and to count them nothing considerd with his devotion to his art.

Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently, when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep.

One thing I am certain of is that, if I have done anything good in music, it was, first, because of my father, and second, because of my wife

Most of the forward movements of life in general ... have been the work of essentially religiously-minded people.