No one really understood music unless he was a scientist, her father had declared, and not just a scientist, either, oh, no, only the real ones, the theoreticians, whose language was mathematics."

Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just have hope or starve to death.

"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible-and achieve it, generation after generation."

Order is the shape upon which beauty depends.

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.