To me the highest thing, after God, is my honor.

I shall seize fate by the throat.

Figured Bass (Harmony) and Religion are self-contained things, one should not argue these.

The foundation of friendship demands the greatest likeness of human souls and hearts.

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

This is not a brook [Bach means "brook" in German], it's an ocean.

But what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone standing next to me heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life - it was only my art that held me back.