Life is only a long and bitter suicide, and faith alone can transform this suicide into a sacrifice.

Music is the heart of life." She speaks love; "without it, there is no possible good and with it everything is beautiful.

I did not compose my work as one might put on a church vestment... rather it sprung from the truly fervent faith of my heart, such as I have felt it since my childhood.

Without any assistance whatever, I founded a school in Weimar in 10 years. Only I could perform certain works with the scanty means that I dared not ask anyone else to work with.

Supreme serenity still remains the Ideal of great Art. The shapes and transitory forms of life are but stages toward this Ideal, which Christ's religion illuminates with His divine light.

It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.