Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply 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.

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.

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 every department of physical science there is only so much science, properly so-called, as there is mathematics.

If America runs on Dunkin', do I detect a slight limp?

Waiting insistently in front of a tightly closed door is unfair to all of the open doors! Give a chance to the open doors!

There was plenty of life left and if he had to he would use it all to get her back. The time had passed for making promises to her-all that was left for him was to act.

I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her.

How do you write zero in Roman numerals?

Real democracy means that no group or faction or leader can impose their will, their ideology, their religion, their desires on anyone else.

You must remember how to dream what you already know.

Most true believers, when faced with evidence that contradicts their beliefs, will hold on to those beliefs even more strongly.

The easier it is to quantify, the less it's worth.