The very essence of success is practice.

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

The great familiar musical works are always greeted by the audiences as ever welcome and beloved friends.

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.

The mere fact of knowing that a great audience waits on your labor is enough to shake all your nerves to pieces.

Piano playing is more difficult than statesmanship. It is harder to awake emotions in ivory keys than it is in human beings.

A man is not necessarily a master because he happened to compose two or three centuries ago. Let us beware of the worship of mere antiquity.