Love demands all, and has a right to all.

Music is the electric soil in which the spirit thinks, lives and invents. All that's electrical stimulates the mind to flowing surging musical creation. I am electrical by nature.

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

If I contemplate myself as part of the Universe: what am I?

You're a happy fellow, for you'll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that.

Yet it was impossible for me to say to people, 'Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf.' Ah, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than others, a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, a perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or ever have enjoyed.

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.