“What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.”

“If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.”

“I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.”

“Man lives in greatest pain”

“But it's peculiar, as soon as I am in the midst of nature and by myself, everything that is base and trivial vanishes without trace. On such days nothing scares me; and this helps me again and again.”

“The Heavenly Spheres make music for us,The Holy Twelve dance with us,All things join in the dance!Ye who dance not, know not what we are knowing.”

“I have not let myself be stultified by science, whose highest goal is to furnish a `waiting room', which it would be best to tear down.”