When one has finished building one's house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know in the worst way - before one began.

A life without music is an error.

You want to be paid as well, you virtuous! You want reward for virtue, and heaven for earth, and eternity for your today?

The aphorism, the apothegm, in which I am the first among the Germans to be a master, are the forms of “eternity”; it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book — what everyone else does not say in a book.

Even the most beautiful scenery is no longer assured of our love after we have lived in it for three months, and some distant coast attracts our avarice: possessions are generally diminished by possession.

That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of what was formerly considered good - the atavism of an old ideal.

They would have to sing better songs for me to learn to have faith in their Redeemer; and his disciples would have to look more redeemed!