Fatherland before everything, art afterward.
Art is great only when it bears the stamp of the individual.
I established a certain standard of behavior, that, during my playing, there must be no talking.
I loved your country [America] before I knew it.
The culture of any country is gauged first by its progress in art.
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.