Hide your secret even from the closest friend; learn to be silent.

Even in poverty I lived like a king for I tell you that nobility is the thing that makes a king

Life would be flat without music. It is the background to all I do. It speaks to the heart in its own special way like nothing else.

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.

There are and always will be thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven!

Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

What will be the judgment a century hence concerning the lorded works of our favorite composers today? Inasmuch as nearly everything is subject to the changes of time, and - more's the pity- the fashions of time, only that which is good and true will endure like a rock and no wanton hand will ever venture to defile it. Then, let every man do that which is right, strive with all his might towards the goal which can never be obtained, develop to the last breath the gifts with which the gracious Creator has endowed him, and never cease to learn. For life is short, art eternal.