People are less self-conscious in the intimacy of family life and during the anxiety of a great sorrow. The dazzling varnish of anextreme politeness is then less in evidence, and the true qualities of the heart regain their proper proportions.

...one of the traits of genius is not to drag its thought through the rut worn by vulgar minds.

Your career will be a painful one. I divine something in you which offends the vulgar.

The first characteristic of Rossini's music is speed - a speed which removes from the soul all the sombre emotions that are so powerfully evoked within us by the slow strains in Mozart. I find also in Rossini a cool freshness, which, measure by measure, makes us smile with delight.

There are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness.

I used to think of deathlike I suppose soldiers think of it: it was a possible thing that I could well avoid by my skill.

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.