Music is indeed the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

Only art and science can raise men to the level of God.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

Applaud my friends, the comedy is over... [on his death bed]

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

It is my wish that you may have at better and freer life than I have had. Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience; this was what upheld me in time of misery.

In the world of art, as in the whole of creation, freedom and progress are the main objectives.