I find myself regarding existence as though from beyond the tomb, from another world; all is strange to me; I am, as it were, outside my own body and individuality; I am depersonalized, detached, cut adrift. Is this madness?

Action is coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.

To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand.

It is work which gives flavor to life.

The art which is grand and yet simple is that which presupposes the greatest elevation both in artist and in public.

Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.

There is an illusion of central position, justifying one's own purposes as right and everybody else¹s as wrong, and providing a proper degree of paranoia. Righteous ends, thus approved, absolve of guilt the most violent means.