I never force myself to be devout except when I feel so inspired, and never compose hymns of prayers unless I feel within me real and true devotion.

You believe happiness to be derived from the place in which once you have been happy, but in truth it is centered in ourselves.

If only your pure and clean mind could touch me, dear Haydn, nobody has a greater reverence for you than I have.

Who can do anything after Beethoven?

I never force myself to be devout except when I feel so inspired, and never compose hymns of prayers unless I feel within me real and true devotion.

Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife.

It sometimes seems to me as if I do not belong to this world at all. I deplore music that engenders in people not love but madness: which rouses them to scornful laughter instead of lifting their thoughts to God.