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

Broad paths are open to every endeavour, and a sympathetic recognition is assured to every one who consecrates his art to the divine services of a conviction of a consciousness.

Beware of missing chances; otherwise it may be altogether too late some day.

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.

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

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

Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist.