Oh, how hard it must be to die anywhere but in one's birthplace.

Oh, how miserable it is to have no one to share your sorrows and joys, and, when your heart is heavy, to have no soul to whom you can pour out your woes.

As long as I have health and strength, I will gladly work all my days.

I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.

Man is never always happy, and very often only a brief period of happiness is granted him in this world; so why escape from this dream which cannot last long?

Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.