I cannot imagine a genuinely happy home without music in it.

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

Intellectual isolation always follows commercial isolation.

There have been a few moments when I have known complete satisfaction, but only a few. I have rarely been free from the disturbing realization that my playing might have been better.

Just as surely as every new language mastered opens up a new world, so knowledge of a Beethoven, a Chopin, or a Schumann opens up a new world in spiritual beauty and thought.

Man is naturally lazy, therefore he invents labor-saving devices.

Times change, people change, thought and feeling take new shapes, put on fresh garments, sons bow their heads unwillingly to that which enraptured their fathers.