This is what I think art is and what I demand of it: that it pull everyone in, that it show one person another's most intimate thoughts and feelings,….

Though everything else may appear shallow and repulsive, even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from town, count….

These, too, seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things be….

Life and art are not two different things..

Pray to God that He might create is us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us..

It's not that music is too imprecise for words, but too precise..

No one can bar me from joyfully proceeding on what the great masters have left us; after all, to rediscover everything again, should be understood to….

Such a divine profession is art! When everything else looks so stale and disgustingly vacuous, so enthralls even the littlest real effort of art our ….

Never mind, put any book on the piano, and someone can turn from time to time, so I need not look as though I played by heart..

I dislike nothing more than finding fault with a man's nature or talent; it only depresses and worries and does no good; one cannot add a cubit to on….

The trombone is too sacred for frequent use..

The essence of beauty is unity in variety..

And do you agree with me, that the first condition of an artist should be to bear respect toward what is great, and to bow to it and acknowledge it a….

First and foremost an artist should pay homage to grandness, honour and bow to it, and not try to extinguish the fierce flames of such, in an attempt….

Ever since I began to compose, I have remained true to my starting principle: not to write a page because no matter what public, or what pretty girl ….

I know perfectly well that no musician can make his thoughts or his talents different to what Heaven has made them; but I also know that if Heaven ha….

People usually complain that music is so ambiguous, and what they are supposed to think when they hear it is so unclear, while words are understood b….

And here we come to the vital distinction between the advocacy of temperance and the advocacy of prohibition. Temperance and self-control are convert….