“The viola is the saddest of all instruments.”

To Jussi Jalas, August 27, 1943. http://www.sibelius.fi/english/omin_sanoin/ominsanoin_13.htm

Source: Jo's Boys

Colin Meloy interview transcript, 2005-10-20 http://www.inlander.com/soundadvice/284516358171408.php,

Woodrow Wilson: "7th Annual Message", December 2, 1919. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29560#axzz2g0trF1OV
1910s
Context: There are those in this country who threaten direct action to force their will, upon a majority. Russia today, with its blood and terror, is a painful object lesson of the power of minorities. It makes little difference what minority it is; whether capital or labor, or any other class; no sort of privilege will ever be permitted to dominate this country. We are a partnership or nothing that is worth while. We are a democracy, where the majority are the masters, or all the hopes and purposes of the men who founded this government have been defeated and forgotten. In America there is but one way by which great reforms can be accomplished and the relief sought by classes obtained, and that is through the orderly processes of representative government. Those who would propose any other method of reform are enemies of this country. America will not be daunted by threats nor lose her composure or calmness in these distressing times. We can afford, in the midst of this day of passion and unrest, to be self - contained and sure. The instrument of all reform in America is the ballot. The road to economic and social reform in America is the straight road of justice to all classes and conditions of men. Men have but to follow this road to realize the full fruition of their objects and purposes. Let those beware who would take the shorter road of disorder and revolution. The right road is the road of justice and orderly process.

Variant: There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.

Source: The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book V, Chapter I, Part III, p. 862.
Context: Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.

Lionel Tertis: "My Viola and I" http://www.erinartscentre.com/archive/galleries/tertis_gallery.html

Source: Animal Farm

On how a musician's way of playing is important
Prasad interview (1997)