There is no substitute for work; what seems ease of performance comes from the greatest labor.

The answer to helplessness is not so very complicated.

I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.

I do not think a day passes in my life in which I fail to look with fresh amazement at the miracle of nature.

I used to think that eighty was a very old age. Now I am ninety. I do not think this any more. As long as you are able to admire and to love, you are young.

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.

To live is not enough; we must take part.