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?

I feel like a novice, just as I felt before I knew anything of the keyboard. It is far too original, and I shall end up not being able to learn it myself.

I don't know how it is, but the Germans are amazed at me and I am amazed at them for finding anything to be amazed about.

Liszt commenting on the music of Frédéric Chopin: He confided . . . those inexpressible sorrows to which the pious give vent in their communication with their Maker. What they never say except upon their knees, he said in his palpitating compositions.

As something has involuntarily crept into my head through my eyes,I love to indulge it, even though it may be all wrong.

England is so surrounded by the boredom of conventionalities, that it is all one to them whether music is good or bad, since they have to hear it from morning till night. For here they have flower-shows with music, dinners with music, sales with music.

When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher.