Beauty is all about us, but how many are blind! They look at the wonder of this earth and seem to see nothing. People move hectically but give little thought to where they are going. They seek excitement ... as if they were lost and desperate.

As long as one can admire and love, then one is young forever.

The first thing to do in life is to do with purpose what one purposes to do.

Don’t be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that; it was not of your doing. What you do with your talent is what matters.

The simplest things in music are the ones that count. The simplest thing are, of course, also the most difficult to achieve and take years of work.

You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.

The miracle of Bach has not appeared in any other art. To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform ordinary activities with spiritual fervour, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things human and human things divine; such is Bach, the greatest and purest moment in music of all time.