Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist.

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

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

I carry a deep sadness of the heart which must now and then break out in sound.

Supreme serenity still remains the Ideal of great Art. The shapes and transitory forms of life are but stages toward this Ideal, which Christ's religion illuminates with His divine light.

Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.

The music of the Gypsies belongs in the sphere of improvisation rather than in any other, without which it would have no power to exist.