I am not thoughtless but am prepared for anything and as a result can wait patiently for whatever the future holds in store, and I'll be able to endure it.

My dear sister! I’m amazed to discover that you can compose so delightfully. In a word, your Lied is beautiful. You must compose more often.

Handel understands effect better than any of us -- when he chooses, he strikes like a thunderbolt.

I too had to work hard, so as not to have to work hard any longer.

I am a fool. That is well known.

I have never written the music that was in my heart to write; perhaps I never shall with this brain and these fingers, but I know that hereafter it will be written; when instead of these few inlets of the senses through which we now secure impressions from without, there shall be a flood of impressions from all sides; and instead of these few tones of our little octave, there shall be an infinite scale of harmonies - for I feel it - I am sure of it. This world of music, whose borders even now I have scarcely entered, is a reality, is immortal.

You know that I become quite powerless whenever I am obliged to write for an instrument which I cannot bear.