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

Are we not all shipwrecked,...condemned to death?... However impatient our neighbours make us, however much indignation our race arouses, we are all bound together, and the companions of a chain-gang have everything to lose by mutual insults.

Happiness does away with ugliness, and even makes the beauty of beauty.

Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.

When everything has its proper place in our minds, we are able to stand in equilibrium with the rest of the world.

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.

For purposes of action nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will.