Of all my children, this is the one that cost me the worst birth-pangs and brought me the most sorrow; and for that reason it is the one most dear to me.

Artists who have won fame are often embarrassed by it; thus their first works are often their best.

My heart is full of many things there are moments when I feel that speech is nothing after all.

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

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold.

I want to seize fate by the throat.