A musical education is necessary for musical judgement. What most people relish is hardly music; it is rather a drowsy reverie relieved by nervous thrills.

To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world.

The little word is has its tragedies: it marries and identifies different things with the greatest innocence; and yet no two are ever identical, and if therein lies the charm of wedding them and calling them one, therein too lies the danger.

The human mind is not rich enough to drive many horses abreast and wants one general scheme, under which it strives to bring everything.

To be boosted by an illusion is not to live better than to live in harmony with the truth ... these refusals to part with a decayed illusion are really an infection to the mind.

The tide of evolution carries everything before it, thoughts no less than bodies, and persons no less than nations.

To condemn spontaneous and delightful occupations because they are useless for self-preservation shows an uncritical prizing of life irrespective of its content.