A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything. |
A true "personality" . . . is like a robust organism that, with unconscious sureness, seeks out and digests the nourishment appropriate to it and vigorously rejects that which is unsuitable. |
At last, fortissimo! [On visiting Niagara] |
Both my marriages were failures! Number one departed, and number two stayed |
Can this be endured at all? Won't people kill themselves afterwards? |
Don't bother looking at the view -- I have already composed it. |
Fortissimo at last! |
Fortissimo at last! ( on seeing Niagara Falls ) |
I have had on the tip of my tongue for some time. |
If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. |
If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. |
If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster. |
The important thing is never to let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries; to continue steadfastly on one's way without letting oneself be either defeated by failure or diverted by applause. |
The longer you live and the more you learn, the more clearly you will feel the difference between the few men who are truly great and the mere virtuosi . . . |
The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause. |