Music is mediator between spiritual and sensual life.

Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you. Oh how harshly was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing.

Even in poverty I lived like a king for I tell you that nobility is the thing that makes a king

There is no greater pleasure for me than to practice and exhibit my art.

Strange, I feel as if up to now I had written no more than a few notes.

What will be the judgment a century hence concerning the lorded works of our favorite composers today? Inasmuch as nearly everything is subject to the changes of time, and - more's the pity- the fashions of time, only that which is good and true will endure like a rock and no wanton hand will ever venture to defile it. Then, let every man do that which is right, strive with all his might towards the goal which can never be obtained, develop to the last breath the gifts with which the gracious Creator has endowed him, and never cease to learn. For life is short, art eternal.

It seemed unthinkable for me to leave the world forever before I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce