At least I have the modesty to admit that lack of modesty is one of my failings..

The luck of having talent is not enough; one must also have a talent for luck..

Love cannot express the idea of music, while music may give an idea of love.

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils..

Which of the two powers, Love or Music, can elevate man to the sublimest heights? ... It is a problem, and yet it seems to me that this is the answer….

Bach is Bach just as God is God..

Music and love are the wings of the soul..

It is difficult to put into words what I suffered-the longing that seemed to be tearing my heart out by the roots, the dreadful sense of being alone ….

To render my works properly requires a combination of extreme precision and irresistible verve, a regulated vehemence, a dreamy tenderness, and an al….

It is not enough that the artist should be well prepared for the public. The public must be well prepared for what it is going to hear..

Time, time - that is our greatest master! Alas, like Ugolino, time devours its own children..

Only by pairing knowledge with inspiration will art evolve. Without these conditions any musician will remain a flawed artist, if one may speak of an….

In my opinion, the trombone is the true head of the family of wind instruments, which I have named the 'epic' one. It possesses nobility and grandeur….

A feeble mind, conscious of its own feebleness, grows feeble under that very consciousness. As soon as the power of fear becomes known to it, there f….

It is so rare...to find a complete person, with a soul, a heart and an imagination; so rare for characters as ardent and restless as ours to meet and….

Heine commenting on the music of Louis Hector Berlioz: He is an immense nightingale, a lark as great as an eagle. . . . The music causes me to dream ….

The trombone is the true head of the family of wind instruments... it has all the serious and powerful tones of sublime musical poetry, from religiou….

If men of genius only knew what love their works inspire!.

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down..