Friendship is usually treated...as a tough...thing which will survive all manner of bad treatment. But this is an exceedingly great and foolish error; it may die in an hour of a single unwise word.

The fire of true enthusiasm is like the fires of Baku, which no water can ever quench, and which burn steadily on from night to day, and year to year, because their well-spring is eternal.

Fame! it is the flower of a day, that dies when the next sun rises.

Music is not a science any more than poetry is. It is a sublime instinct, like genius of all kinds.

I have met a thousand scamps; but I never met one who considered himself so. Self-knowledge isn't so common.

Who has passed by the fates of disillusion has died twice.

Imagination without culture is crippled and moves slowly; but it can be pure imagination, and rich also, as folk-lore will tell the vainest.