The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, 'Thus far and no farther.'

But what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone standing next to me heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life - it was only my art that held me back.

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

An artist is someone who has learned to trust in himself.

I carry my thoughts about me for a long time, often a very long time, before I write them down; meanwhile my memory is so faithful that I am sure never to forget, not even in years, a theme that has once occurred to me.

A great poet is the most precious jewel of a nation.

Recommend to your children to be virtuous, only the virtue can bring us happiness, not the money.