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.

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

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

I want to seize fate by the throat.

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.

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

I know of no more sacred duty than to rear and educate a child.