Beware of missing chances; otherwise it may be altogether too late some day.
Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist.
Life is only a long and bitter suicide, and faith alone can transform this suicide into a sacrifice.
Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.
Sorrowful and great is the artist's destiny.
Truth is a great flirt.
Real men are sadly lacking in this world, for when they are put to the test they prove worthless.
The principal task of a conductor is not to put himself in evidence but to disappear behind his functions as much as possible. We are pilots, not servants.
Inspiration is enough to give expression to the tone in singing, especially when the song is without words.
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.
I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.
It is impossible to imagine a more complete fusion with nature than that of the Gypsy.
A person of any mental quality has ideas of his own. This is common sense.
The character of instrumental music... lets the emotions radiate and shine in their own character without presuming to display them as real or imaginary representations.
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.
Companions, in misery and worse, that is what we all are, and to try to change this substantially avails us nothing.
The music of the Gypsies belongs in the sphere of improvisation rather than in any other, without which it would have no power to exist.
Broad paths are open to every endeavour, and a sympathetic recognition is assured to every one who consecrates his art to the divine services of a conviction of a consciousness.
I foster a sorrowful conception of affection. Make no sacrifices.
It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.
