Quotations

"After conducting Wagner, Beethoven's triple concerto is like taking an Alka Seltzer."

— Zubin Mehta, Indian conductor, born 1936

"In truth, I became a conductor because deep down I wanted to conduct Brahms's four symphonies and Richard Strauss's tone poems."

— Zubin Mehta, Indian conductor, born 1936

"Architecture which enters into a symbiosis with light does not merely create form in light, by day and at night, but allow light to become form."

— Richard Meier, American architect, born 1934

"Asking why mindfulness works is like asking why detergent works. We just know if you wash something in the stuff, when it comes out, it’s clean."

— Lucia Meijer, Linking Awareness Facilitator

"We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown and when strawberries bloom in Israel."

— Golda Meir, First female Prime Minister of Israel, born 1898

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

— Herman Melville, American novelist, born 1819

"What is an atheist, but one who does not, or will not, see in the universe a ruling principle of love; and what a misanthrope, but one who does not, or will not, see in man a ruling principle of kindness?"

— Herman Melville, American novelist, born 1819

"It is not down on any map; true places never are."

— Herman Melville, American novelist, born 1819

"Ignorance is the parent of fear."

— Herman Melville, American novelist, born 1819

"Good photos to good people and from a good person."

— Rebecca Menashe, American artist, born 1979 (at age five, when asked for a byline on her father's work)

"Ever since I began to compose, I have remained true to my starting principle: not to write a page because no matter what public, or what pretty girl wanted it to be thus or thus; but to write solely as I myself thought best, and as it gave me pleasure."

— Felix Mendelssohn, German composer, born 1809

"Never mind, put any book on the piano, and someone can turn from time to time, so I need not look as though I played by heart."

— Felix Mendelssohn, German composer, born 1809

"My art is grounded in the belief of one universal energy which runs through everything: from insect to man, from man to specter, from specter to plant from plant to galaxy. My works are the irrigation veins of this universal fluid. Through them ascend the ancestral sap, the original beliefs, the primordial accumulations, the unconscious thoughts that animate the world."

— Ana Mendieta, Cuban-American sculptor, born 1948

"A society without its dreamers can never be free."

— Yehudi Menuhin, American-Swiss violinist, born 1916