One must not make oneself cheap here -- that is a cardinal point -- or else one is done. Whoever is most impertinent has the best chance.

One must not make oneself cheap here - that is a cardinal point - or else one is done. Whoever is most impertinent has the best chance.

I live in a country where music has very little success, though, exclusive of those who have forsaken us, we have still admirable professors and, more particularly, composers of great solidity, knowledge, and taste.

An unmarried man, in my opinion, enjoys only half a life.

Versification is, indeed, indispensable for music, but rhyme, solely for rhyming's sake, most pernicious.

As for pupils, I can have as many as I choose, but I do not choose to take many. I intend to be better paid than others, and so I wish to have fewer scholars. It is advisable to hang back a little at first, or it is all over with you, and you must pursue the common highway with the rest.