To play without passion is inexcusable!

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.

He who understand my music will remain free from the miseries that the other men are dragging with them .

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

In the country It seems as if every tree Said to me 'Holy! Holy!' Who can ever express The ecstasy of the woods! Almighty One, In the woods I am blessed. Happy every one in the woods. Every tree speaks through Thee. O God! What glory in the woodland.

Don't regard yourself as too divine to improve, occasionally, your own works.

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