“It may be observed of good writing, as of good blood, that it is much easier to say what it is composed of than to compose it.”

Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.

The Grecian’s maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in Literature; it would reduce many a giant to a pygmy; many a speech to a sentence; and many a folio to a primer.

Most plagiarists, like the drone, have neither taste to select, industry to acquire, nor skill to improve, but impudently pilfer the honey ready prepared, from the hive.

Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed.

The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age.

Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.

He that studies only men will get the body of knowledge without the soul; and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.

The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily be swallowed, since folly will always find faith where impostors will find imprudence.

Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.

Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.

Unlike the sun, intellectual luminaries shine brightest after they set.

There are male as well as female gossips.

The poorest man would not part with health for money, but the richest would gladly part with all their money for health.

Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us – never cease to instruct – never cloy.

An honest man will continue to be so though surrounded on all sides by rogues.

Composers combine notes, that’s all.

You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.

If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach.

Stravinsky the composer I worship. Stravinsky the thinker I despise.

The most uninteresting part of the biography of a composer is his childhood. All those preludes are the same and the reader hurries on to the fugue.

A movement is only composed of people moving. To feel its warmth and motion around us is the end as well as the means.

I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy.

A jury is composed of twelve men of average ignorance.