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

True originality has its foundations in the soul, not in the mind, and when there is an effort to create something different it is usually a failure. Beethoven or Schumann or Chopin did not try to be original. They were original.

The Pole listening to Chopin listens to the voice of his whole race.

Fatherland before everything, art afterward.

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.

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

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