Nothing is more beautiful than the sound of the guitar.

Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano.

Man is never always happy, and very often only a brief period of happiness is granted him in this world; so why escape from this dream which cannot last long?

Here, waltzes are called works! And Strauss and Lanner, who play them for dancing, are called Kapellmeistern. This does not mean that everyone thinks like that; indeed, nearly everyone laughs about it; but only waltzes get printed.

I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me.

If the newspapers cut me up so much that I shall not venture before the world again, I have resolved to become a house painter; that would be as easy as anything else, and I should, at any rate, still be an artist!

Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars . . . Beethoven embraced the universe with the power of his spirit . . . I do not climb so high. A long time ago I decided that my universe will be the soul and heart of man.