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

From the glow of enthusiasm I let the melody escape. I pursue it. Breathless I catch up with it. It flies again, it disappears, it plunges into a chaos of diverse emotions. I catch it again, I seize it, I embrace it with delight... I multiply it by modulations, and at last I triumph in the first theme. There is the whole symphony.

He that divines the secret of my music is freed from the unhappiness that haunts the whole world of men.

Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear.

Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.

It is my belief one should not belittle the artist; while, however glorious his fame may seem, his time on Mount Olympus as an honourable guest of Zeus is short. It's a pity, but all too eager will the common folk drag him from this etherial heights to the low and trodden earth.

There is no loftier mission than to approach the Godhead more nearly than other mortals, and by means of that contact to spread the rays of the Godhead through the human race.