It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.

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.

Without any assistance whatever, I founded a school in Weimar in 10 years. Only I could perform certain works with the scanty means that I dared not ask anyone else to work with.

Truth is a great flirt.

It is impossible to imagine a more complete fusion with nature than that of the Gypsy.

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.