One does not play Bach without having done scales. But neither does one play a scale merely for the sake of the scale.

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.

Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on.

There are only two things that pierce the human heart. One is beauty. The other is affliction.

If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice of how he acts when he loses money.

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice.

The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running.

Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.

More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.

If we who have the Holy Spirit living and working within us falter and fail, what hope is there for the rest of the world?

The importation of gold and silver is not the principal, much less the sole benefit which a nation derives from its foreign trade.

I never reread a text until I have finished the first draft. Otherwise it's too discouraging.

The criticism is that it's too simple, but my feeling is it's more of a challenge making someone feel an emotion in four notes than in 25 notes.

My agent tells me I am drawing the largest salary ever paid in the halls of England. Wonderful, isn't it? for a quiet, rural gardener like myself.

Wearing a veneer of perfection never did me any good.

I like someone with a really good and dark sense of humour.

I do not believe that it is possible to teach a cat to obey; that is contrary to his nature.

Life is a school and problems are the curriculum.

An eminent reputation is as dangerous as a bad one.