Chaos is perhaps at the bottom of everything.

Many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier; and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions.

There is nothing to which men, while they have food and drink, cannot reconcile themselves.

To keep beauty in its place is to make all things beautiful.

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.

The loftiest edifices need the deepest foundations.

Our dignity is not in what we do, but what we understand.