“Every bit of theorizing I’ve ever done, including my interest in Berg, has come as a consequence of discoveries I made as a composer and interests that I developed as a composer. I never thought of my theory as being a kind of irrelevant activity to my composing.”

Autobiographical Recollections of C. R. Leslie with Selections from his correspondence Ed. Tom Taylor , Ticknor & Fields, Boston 1860

Händel ist der größte Komponist, der je lebte. Ich würde meine Kopfbedeckung abnehmen und auf seinem Grab knien. <br class="br">Beethoven, speaking to J. A. Stumpff in the autumn of 1823. Published in Friedrich Kerst Beethoven der Mann und der Künstler, wie in seinen Eigenen Words enthüllt no. 112 http://www.bucheralle.org/6C76626D613131/ch35.html; Friedrich Kerst (trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel) Beethoven, the Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words (1964), p. 54. <br class="br">Criticism

Reflections (1981)

Source: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789; 1823), Ch. 1: Of the Principle of Utility

Interview: The Man Behind the Music - Jason Graves http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2015/05/interview_the_man_behind_the_music_-_jason_graves (May 16, 2015)

'Pierre Monteux in his own words', Classic Record Collector, Autumn 2003, Number 34, p. 18

Gramophone
Context: I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach. I really can't think of any other music which is so all-encompassing, which moves me so deeply and so consistently, and which, to use a rather imprecise word, is valuable beyond all of its skill and brilliance for something more meaningful than that -- its humanity.

Said to Isaac Glikman, 1936; cited from Laurel Fay Shostakovich: A Life (2000) p. 92.