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.

One criticizes the English for carrying their teapots wherever they go, even lugging them up Mount Etna. But doesn't every nationhave its teapot, in which, even when traveling, it brews the dried bundles of herbs brought from home?

The highest cannot be spoken; it can only be acted.

Man's restlessness makes him strive.

So long as you live and work, you will be misunderstood; to that you must resign yourself once and for all. Be silent!

I have always paid attention to the merits of my enemies, and found it an advantage.

The effects of good music are not just because it's new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.