If only your pure and clean mind could touch me, dear Haydn, nobody has a greater reverence for you than I have.

Nobody understands another's sorrow, and nobody another's joy.

Easy mind, light heart. A mind that is too easy hides a heart that is too heavy.

No one feels another's grief, no one understands another's joy. People imagine they can reach one another. In reality they only pass each other by.

When I wished to sing of love, it turned to sorrow. And when I wished to sing of sorrow, it was transformed for me into love.

Above all things, I must not get angry. If I do get angry I knock all the teeth out of the mouth of the poor wretch who has angered me.