The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other is by music.

To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

Everything is something I decide to do, and there is nothing I have to do.

We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.

"Every man has his price." This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing. To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice - and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow. To their souls, these are the icing, the tidbit; other kinds of souls have others.

Though a good motive cannot sanction a bad action, a bad motive will always vitiate a good action. In common and trivial matters we may act without motives, but in momentous ones the most careful deliberation is wisdom.

Men are more accountable for their motives, than for anything else; and primarily, morality consists in the motives, that is in the affections.

If rich people could hire other people to die for them, the poor could make a wonderful living.

The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward.