Tradition is the spreading of fire and not the veneration of ashes.

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.

The full Moon's light poured into the room like a stroke from a wide paintbrush...

Competition means decentralized planning by many separate persons.

I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President I'm beginning to believe it.

Given the chance to throw off a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein, people will rejoice.

Your mantrum is the awareness of the dream - to enjoy and appreciate and have gratitude for all; neither to condemn nor to liberate, but to observe.

Dante can be understood only within the context of Italian thought, and Faust would be unthinkable if divorced from its German background; but both are part of our common cultural heritage.

There is nothing like playing at Wimbledon; you can feel the footprints of the legends of the game-men and women-that have graced those courts.

I am fully and entirely concentrated on the board. I never even consider my opponent's personality. So far as I am concerned, my opponent might as well be an abstraction or an automaton.

My only enemy is right-wing religious fundamentalism.