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

We ought to think that we are one of the leaves of a tree, and the tree is all humanity. We cannot live without the others, without the tree.

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

For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner. It is not a mechanical routine, but something essential to my daily life. I go to the piano, and play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I cannot think of doing otherwise. It is a sort of benediction on the house. But that is not its only meaning for me. It is a rediscovery of the world of which I have the joy of being a part. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with a feeling of the incredible marvel of being a human being.

Resist doing things that have no meaning for life.

The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?

The heart of the melody can never be put down on paper.