“I feel that the end of my days is drawing near; my senses are failing me; my delight and strength in creating songs are gone; he, who was once honored by half of Europe, is forgotten; others have come and are the objects of admiration; one must give place to another. Nothing remains for me but trust in God, and the hope of an unclouded existence in the Land of Peace.”
Salieri in a conversation with Hüttenbrenner on June 8, 1822, quoted in Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Salieri: rival of Mozart (1989), p. 150
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Antonio Salieri 1
Italian classical composer and conductor 1750–1825Related quotes
Source: The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus (c.1565), Ch. XXV. "Divine Locutions. Discussions on That Subject" ¶ 26 & 27
Variant translation: I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.
Context: May it please His Majesty that we fear Him whom we ought to fear, and understand that one venial sin can do us more harm than all hell together; for that is the truth. The evil spirits keep us in terror, because we expose ourselves to the assaults of terror by our attachments to honours, possessions, and pleasures. For then the evil spirits, uniting themselves with us, — we become our own enemies when we love and seek what we ought to hate, — do us great harm. We ourselves put weapons into their hands, that they may assail us; those very weapons with which we should defend ourselves. It is a great pity. But if, for the love of God, we hated all this, and embraced the cross, and set about His service in earnest, Satan would fly away before such realities, as from the plague. He is the friend of lies, and a lie himself. He will have nothing to do with those who walk in the truth. When he sees the understanding of any one obscured, he simply helps to pluck out his eyes; if he sees any one already blind, seeking peace in vanities, — for all the things of this world are so utterly vanity, that they seem to be but the playthings of a child, — he sees at once that such a one is a child; he treats him as a child, and ventures to wrestle with him — not once, but often.
May it please our Lord that I be not one of these; and may His Majesty give me grace to take that for peace which is really peace, that for honour which is really honour, and that for delight which is really a delight. Let me never mistake one thing for another — and then I snap my fingers at all the devils, for they shall be afraid of me. I do not understand those terrors which make us cry out, Satan, Satan! when we may say, God, God! and make Satan tremble. Do we not know that he cannot stir without the permission of God? What does it mean? I am really much more afraid of those people who have so great a fear of the devil, than I am of the devil himself. Satan can do me no harm whatever, but they can trouble me very much, particularly if they be confessors. I have spent some years of such great anxiety, that even now I am amazed that I was able to bear it. Blessed be our Lord, who has so effectually helped me!
A Single Eye, All Light, No Darkness; or Light and Darkness One (1650)
“On some of my darkest days, Lucifer's the one who comes and gives me an ice cream.”
“In my days of youth, I remembered my God,
And he hath not forgotten my age.”
The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them, st. 6.
"Days I enjoy", quoted in Vita and Virginia: The Work and Friendship of V. Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf (1993) by Suzanne Raitt, p. 89
Context: Days I enjoy are days when nothing happens,
When I have no engagements written on my block,
When no one comes to disturb my inward peace,
When no one comes to take me away from myself
And turn me into a patchwork, a jig-saw puzzle,
A broken mirror that once gave a whole reflection,
Being so contrived that it takes too long a time
To get myself back to myself when they have gone.
Speech in Stourport (12 January 1925), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 15-16.
1925
Context: If there is anything... it is my training, which has given me, whether I can use it or not, a knowledge and a sympathy very difficult for any man to attain who has had an exclusively political training I regard it as of the greatest value to myself that during the formative years of my life, and during the ten and twenty years when I first started work in the world, I worked in close contact with all classes of people in this country, and enjoyed, through no credit to myself, the goodwill which I have inherited from generations that have gone before me and left behind a name for honesty, fair play, right judgment, and kindliness to those with whom they worked. Through that, whether I succeed or not, I believe I have an understanding of the mind of the people of the country which I could have gained in no other way. It is through this that I have that ineradicable belief and faith in our people which sustains me through good times and evil, and it is because of this that I have every confidence that, whatever troubles may come to this country, or in this country at any time, the native strength and virtue of our people will overcome everything. There is only one thing which I feel is worth giving one's whole strength to, and that is the binding together of all classes of our people in an effort to make life in this country better in every sense of the word. That is the main end and object of my life in politics.