There is nothing boring in life except ourselves.

Do nothing for effect. Do it for truth.

It is nothing to succeed if one has not taken great trouble, and it is nothing to fail if one has done the best one could.

In music everything is prolonged, everything is edified, and when the enchantment has ceased, we are still bathed in its clarity; solitude is accompanied by a new hope between pity for ourselves - which makes us more indulgent and more understanding - and the certitude of finding something again, that which lives for ever in music.

Without order there can be no inner satisfaction. Without inner satisfaction there can be no freedom. Without freedom there is no joy.

Never forget that your days are blessed. You may know how to profit by them, or you may not, but they are blesses.

To study music, we must learn the rules. To create music, we must break them.