"Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can elevate man to the divine."

"No man can be a composer who has not heard all the works of the great masters."

"Ah, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce."

"Damn your eyes! You are an ass!"

"What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven."