no one talks more passionately about his rights than he who in the depths of his soul doubts whether he has any

whatever is profound loves masks; what is most profound even hates image and parable.

Winter, a bad guest, sitteth with me at home; blue are my hands with his friendly handshaking

No one is such a liar as the indignant man.

For nothing is more democratic than logic; it is no respecter of persons and makes no distinction between crooked and straight noses.

In Bach there is still too much crude Christianity, crude Germanism, crude scholasticism; he stands on the threshold of European (modern) music, but he looks back from there to the Middle Ages.

Hope, in its stronger forms, is a great deal more powerful stimulans to life than any sort of realized joy can ever be. Man must be sustained in suffering by a hope so high that no conflict with actuality can dash it - so high, indeed, that no fulfilment can satisfy it: a hope reaching out beyond this world.