“The heart of man is a labyrinth, whose windings are very difficult to be discovered.”

“Unwittingly then had I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite, whose structure shall persist while man inhabits the planet.”

“Lives there a man whose sole delights
Are trivial pomp and city noise,
Hardening a heart that loathes or slights
What every natural heart enjoys?”

“The very spirits of the winds, when they were sent to carry the grateful harvest to the thirsting fields of Calabria, did not forget the geometry which they had studied in the caverns of Æolus and of which the geologist is daily discovering the diagrams.”

“Don't lose heart if it's very difficult at times, everything will come out all right and nobody can in the beginning do as he wishes.”

“We say that Columbus discovered America and Newton discovered gravity, as though America and gravity weren't there until Columbus and Newton got wind of them.”

“There is a loud cry in these days for clues that shall guide the plain man through the vast bewildering labyrinth of printed volumes.”

“Bach is an astronomer, discovering the most marvellous stars. Beethoven challenges the universe. I only try to express the soul and the heart of man.”

“Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond.”

“Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love — and to put its trust in life!!”