I am a fool. That is well known.

I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.

People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to compositions as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times.

I cannot write in verse, for I am no poet. I cannot arrange the parts of speech with such art as to produce effects of light and shade, for I am no painter. Even by signs and gestures I cannot express my thoughts and feelings, for I am no dancer. But I can do so by means of sounds, for I am a musician.

If only the whole world could feel the power of harmony.

Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once (gleich dies zusammen). What a delight this is I cannot tell ! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing lively dream.

Love guards the heart from the abyss.