To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.

God is ever before my eyes. I realize his omnipotence and I fear His anger; but I also recognize his compassion, and His tenderness towards His creatures.

Music is my life and my life is music. Anyone who does not understand this is not worthy of God.

Whoever is most impertinent has the best chance.

I will gladly give lessons as a favor, particularly when I see that my student has talent, inclination, and anxiety to learn; but to be obliged to go to a house at a certain hour, or to have to wait at home for a pupil, is what I cannot do, no matter how much money it may bring me in. . . I am a composer and was born to be a Kapellmeister. I neither can nor ought to bury the talent for composition with which God in his goodness has so richly endowed me. . .

The whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind so that I can survey it at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What delight this is I cannot tell!

Music, in even the most terrible situations, must never offend the ear but always remain a source of pleasure.