Is there anything more true than human pain? Is there anything more sincere than the cry for help from those who suffer? Only a great wave of mankind's pity can surmount an immense wave of human misery?

The ultimate necessity is the summoning of the mind and will to do their duty.

I loved your country [America] before I knew it.

Art without technique is invertebrate, shapeless, characterless.

Change follows change in us, almost without transition; we pass from blissful rapture to sobbing woe; a single step divides our sublimest ecstasies from the darkest depth of spiritual despondency.

When I miss a week in practice, my audience knows it. When I miss a day, I know it.

Chopin was an invalid, as you know, but his music was volcanic.