Beethoven and Wagner for many years wrung our hearts. But now we are sated with them and derive much greater pleasure from ideally combining the noise of streetcars internal-combustion engines, automobiles, and bust crowds than from rehearing, for example, the 'Eroica' or the 'Pastorale'...away! let us be gone, since we shall not much longer succeed in restraining a desire to create a new musical realism by a generous distribution of sonorous blows and slaps, leaping numbly over violins, pianofortes, contrabasses, and groaning organs. Away! Luigi Russolo
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Albert Einstein
Purpose defines success. It's the primal reference point for any investment of time and energy, from deciding to run for elective office to designing a form. David Allen
We're never really taught that we have to think about our work before we can do it. David Allen
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. Henry Bergson
Have you ever heard the story of Milon, the famous Olympian who supposedly developed his massive physical strength by picking up a calf and carrying it every day as it grew into a bull? This is the classic story of progressive overload, and regardless of whether it's true or not, it illustrates the very best way to get bigger: Lift a little more each time you train. Michael Mejia
A former student reported that one day he came home from jogging, took off his sweaty shirt, and rolled it up into a ball, intending to throw it in the laundry basket. Instead he threw it in the toilet. (It wasn't poor aim: the laundry basket and toilet were in different rooms.) Donald Norman
The mere possession of the tools means nothing; it is the instinct – the artistic intuition as to when and how to use the tools – that counts. Josef Hofmann
Teresa! Teresa! Come quickly! My child and your child are fighting with our child! Eugene d'Albert
Young man, if I had your strength and played that polonaise as it should be played, there would not be a string left in the instrument by the time I got through. Frédéric Chopin
The moment he is seated at the piano he is evidently unconscious that there is anything else in existence . . . . The muscles of his face swell and its veins stand out; the wild eye rolls doubly wild; the mouth quivers; and Beethoven looks like a wizard overpowered by the demons he has called up. . . . And, considering how very deaf he is, it seems impossible that he should hear all he plays. Accordingly, when playing softly, he does not bring out a single note. He hears it himself in his "mind's ear," while his eye, and the almost imperceptible motion of his fingers, shows that he is following out the strain in his own soul through all its dying gradations. The instrument is actually dumb as the musician is deaf. . . . Sir John Russell
Nose or not, Pixis got around, and he liked 'em young. Harold Schonberg
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. Samuel Johnson
The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse. Carlos Castaneda
Effective forms don't take space – they create it. David Allen
We need to back off every seven days or so from our tree hugging to do a little forest management. David Allen
Form. You can't do, without it. Until you do, without it. David Allen
The silly question is the first intimation of some totally new development. Alfred North Whitehead
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. William Arthur Ward
No piano was safe with Beethoven. Harold Schonberg
At Mayence a military band came playing down the street of the concert hall, right in the middle of a Wölffl improvisation. Wölffl immediately picked up the rhythm, modulated into the key of the band's melody, picked up all the themes, and improvised on the spot concerto to band accompaniment. Harold Schonberg
If you limit your choices to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise. Robert Fritz
You don’t make the lists of actions and projects just to get them all done and then do nothing else in your life. You process the things you have attention on so you can do what you really feel like doing. David Allen
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got though first, some unfinished businiess, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. Father Alfred D'souza
He took the first movement prestissimo, the Andante allegro, and the Rondo even more prestissimo. He generally played the bass quite differently form the way it was written, inventing now and then quite another harmony and melody. Nothing else is possible at such a tempo, for the eyes cannot see the music or the hands that perform it. Well what good is it? That kind of sight-reading and shitting are all one to me.... Well, you may easily imagine that it was unendurable. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Once, as a small boy, I saw a cat fall off the roof of our barn, she turned over in mid-air and, accurately poised, landed on all four paws unhurt. Pianists please note. Heinrich Neuhaus
When a pupil falls into the arbitrary, tries to be original and becomes wild, I remind him of that excellent rule of strategy: one must have artillery but not show it. If the word "artillery" is replaced by the word "individuality", "temperance", "personality" and many others, the artilleryman's rule will also apply to the pianist. Heinrich Neuhaus
A mature pianist knows full well which of the power installations built into his body he should use and when, and which to disconnect and why. One who is not mature either brings out his heavy artillery to shoot sparrows or uses a toy pistol against a battery of guns. Heinrich Neuhaus
Everyone is aware of the fact that visual and auditive perspectives are identical; the only difference being that they are created and perceived by two physically different organs, the eye and the ear. Heinrich Neuhaus
What sort of person is a pianist? Is he a pianist because he has a good technique? No, of course not; he has a good technique because he is a pianist, because he finds meaning in sounds, the poetic content of music, its regular structure and harmony. Heinrich Neuhaus
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Allan Kay
If information overload was the issue you’d walk into a library and die. David Allen
Code is poetry Automattic
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Jesus
She talks in 6/8. Sam Shahi
He who builds his house with another's money is collecting stones for his funeral mound. Sirach 21:8