The day will come when all nations amidst which the Jews are dwelling will have to raise the question of their wholesale expulsion, a question which will be one of life or death, good health or chronic disease, peaceful existence or perpetual social fever.

Life is only a long and bitter suicide, and faith alone can transform this suicide into a sacrifice.

When you write the story of two happy lovers, let the story be set on the banks of Lake Como.

I am not fond of speaking about politics because I don't have in my possession an army of 200,000 soldiers.

My piano is to me what a ship is to the sailor, what a steed is to the Arab. It is the intimate personal depository of everything that stirred wildly in my brain during the most impassioned days of my youth. It was there that all my wishes, all my dreams, all my joys, and all my sorrows lay.

My mind and fingers have worked like the damned. Homer, the Bible, Plato, Locke, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber are all around me. I study them. I devour them with fury.

My sole ambition as a composer is to hurl my javelin into the infinite space of the future.