Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look around.

If everyone sweeps before his own front door, then the street is clean.

You acquire a language most readily in the country where it is spoken; you study mineralogy best among miners; and so with everything else.

We should know mankind better if we were not so anxious to resemble one another.

[W]hat counts is that one perceives excellence and dares to give it expression, which sounds little but is in fact a great deal.

A lot of people do not care about your money until nearly penniless. They also do so with time