Tradition is the spreading of fire and not the veneration of ashes.

I hope you will no longer accuse me of a lack of delicacy. as I now count on your understanding.

I don't let myself get carried away by my own ideas; I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.

That which draws us by its mystical force; what every created thing, even the very stones, feels with absolute certainty as the center of its being... is the force of love. Christians call this "eternal blessedness." It is a necessity of man for growth and joy.

If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies.

You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.

The longer you live and the more you learn, the more clearly you will feel the difference between the few men who are truly great and the mere virtuosi.