We need improvement in the style of performance. There is no more advantage in a musician who plays and conducts than in one who is only a beater of rhythm.

I did not compose my work as one might put on a church vestment... rather it sprung from the truly fervent faith of my heart, such as I have felt it since my childhood.

It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.

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

Companions, in misery and worse, that is what we all are, and to try to change this substantially avails us nothing.

Music is never stationary; successive forms and styles are only like so many resting-places - like tents pitched and taken down again on the road to the Ideal.

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