Mozart is the highest, the culminating point that beauty has attained in the sphere of music.

Brahms stayed an extra day to hear my [Fifth] Symphony and was very kind ... I like his honesty and open-mindedness. Neither he nor the players liked the finale, which I also think rather horrible.

Mozart is the musical Christ.

Where the heart does not enter; there can be no music.

Only music clarifies, reconciles, and consoles. But it is not a straw just barely clutched at. It is a faithful friend, protector, and comforter, and for its sake alone, life in this world is worth living. Who knows, perhaps in heaven there will be no music. So let us live on the earth while we still have life!

If that condition of mind and soul, which we call inspiration, lasted long without intermission, no artist could survive it. The strings would break and the instrument be shattered into fragments.

Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.