If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.
You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.
Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand.
It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces.
A true personality . . . is like a robust organism that, with unconscious sureness, seeks out and digests the nourishment appropriate to it and vigorously rejects that which is unsuitable.
Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one's way.