“A man of ordinary talent will always be ordinary, whether he travels or not; but a man of superior talent will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place.”

“The only thing--I tell you this straight from the heart--that disgusts me in Salzburg is that one can't have any proper social intercourse with those people--and that music does not have a better reputation...For I assure you, without travel, at least for people from the arts and sciences, one is a miserable creature!...A man of mediocre talents always remains mediocre, may he travel or not--but a man of superior talents, which I cannot deny myself to have without being blasphemous, becomes--bad, if he always stays in the same place. If the archbishop would trust me, I would soon make his music famous; that is surely true.”

“Ordinary people merely think how they shall 'spend' their time; a man of talent tries to 'use' it.”

“Flowers have the greatest talent in converting an ordinary place into a magical palace!”

“With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable”

“Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.”