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.

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.

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

Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.

You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.

The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.

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

A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.

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

If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster.

In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.

Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.

I want to remember what we were like before we became ourselves.

When our vices leave us we flatter ourselves with the credit of having left them.

The world is bad but not without hope. It is only hopeless when you look at it from an ideal viewpoint.

An Irish man fights before he reasons, a Scotchman reasons before he fights, an Englishman is not particular as to the order of precedence, but will do either to accommodate his customers.

Monuments! what are they? the very pyramids have forgotten their builders, or to whom they were dedicated. Deeds, not stones, are the true monuments of the great.

He had the blue kite in his hands; that was the first thing I saw. And I can't lie now and say my eyes didn't scan it for any rips.

My horizons are also broadened by working with so many people around Europe. They taught me what I never would have learned just staying in my own country.

Instead of tug o' war, let's play hug o' war.