The man who meets with a failure attributes this failure rather to the ill will of another than to fate.

One thing a man must have: either a naturally light disposition or a disposition lightened by art and knowledge.

Where neither love nor hatred is in the game, a woman's game is mediocre.

The end of a melody is not its goal; but nonetheless, if the melody had not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable.

The word 'Christianity' is already a misunderstanding - in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.

Examine the life of the best and most productive men and nations, and ask yourselves whether a tree which is to grow proudly skywards can dispense with bad weather and storms. Whether misfortune and opposition, or every kind of hatred, jealousy, stubbornness, distrust, severity, greed, and violence do not belong to the favourable conditions without which a great growth even of virtue is hardly possible?

The Germans are incapable of any conception of greatness: proof Schumann.