I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition." (Said to Leopold Mozart)

I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son (W A Mozart)is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition.

There was no one near to confuse me, so I was forced to become original.

If you want to know whether you have written anything worth preserving, sing it to yourself without any accompaniment.

Young people can learn from my example that something can come from nothing. What I have become is the result of my hard efforts.