Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its students."

[Letter, November 1856]

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

Life when one first arrives is a continual mortification as one's romantic illusions are successively shattered and the musical treasure-house of one's imagination crumbles before the hopelessness of the reality. Every day fresh experiences bring fresh disappointments.

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.