A friend of mine tells me that a Beethoven symphony can solve for him a problem of conduct. I've no doubt that it does so simply by giving him a sense of the tragedy and the greatness of human destiny, which makes his personal anxieties seem small, which throws them into a new proportion.

Politics is like navigation in a sea without charts, and wise men live the lives of pilgrims.

Love doesn't grow on trees like apples in Eden - it's something you have to make. And you must use your imagination too.

Reality is a narrow little house which becomes a prison to those who can't get out of it.

Where can one find a profounder desolation than in the poor child who has lost its mother?

A perfect God is the creation of a conceited man

I look upon life as a gift from God. I did nothing to earn it. Now that the time is coming to give it back, I have no right to complain.