The most perfect expression of human behavior is a string quartet.

The most perfect expression of human behavior is a string quartet.

Basically speaking, conducting is quite a healthy profession.

Beethoven, Schubert, Schoenberg, Berg imply a type of pianist who is intellectual. That's not always associated with female soloists.

Concert-going has become much less the thing to do, while people are still going to opera. This might be a harsh judgment, but it could easily happen that orchestras could slowly atrophy.

I can't even touch another conductor's baton. The center of gravity, the feel of the handle, puts me totally off.

I don't like to hurry. I'm not a conductor of the fast, fiery romantic type. I prefer Bruckner, with the sincerity of his musical language and the huge time spans in which his ideas develop, to Mahler, with his hysteria and self-indulgence.

I frequently find after a rehearsal of a performance that I have more breath, and can walk better and climb stairs better than I could before. It's as if I've expanded my lungs doing it. Basically speaking, conducting is quite a healthy profession.

I guess, as a conductor, one goes in and out of fashion. Your career starts with a bang, everyone thinks you're wonderful, and then with middle age, something happens and you go into the wilderness.

I had a sense of debt to the medical profession and to surgery particularly. I would not be as ambient as I am without it.

I was told when I went for a life-insurance exam when I was 18 that I was not likely to live past 50, so I refused to pay the premium.

If people had told me that I would have the stamina to conduct 'Ring Cycles,' I would have been amazed. I still am.

In Hamburg, there are three major orchestras, an opera house, and one of the great concert-hall acoustics in Europe at the Laeiszhalle, in a town a fifth the size of London. And that's not unusual. In Germany, there are dozens of towns with two or three orchestras. The connection with music goes very, very deep.

On the grounds of prestigious musical organizations that come and go, New York has the edge.

People still call me the eternal amateur. After all, professionals are supposed to be able to conduct everything. But I can't unless I feel some connection inside. Conducting is not an end in itself for me.

So I observe life a little bit, rather than participating in it.

What appeals to me about an American music directorship is the involvement of the conductor with the orchestra and the community. I think that's a fantastic thing. In Europe, being principal conductor means merely that you're the person who does most of the concerts. For me, that simply isn't enough.

Spry is not a look, spry is behavior.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

The civilizing process has increased the distance between behavior and the impulse life of the animal body.

Beauty set up distance between other people and me. It warped their behavior.

I try as best I can to enter the realm of nuances of human behavior.

I'm always looking, as an actor, for activities. I think it's far more interesting to watch what people do than what they say. You always want to watch behavior, because the dialogue as written by our illustrious leaders is great. Eminently playable.

The mind cannot support moral chaos for long. Men are under as strong a compulsion to invent an ethical setting for their behavior as spiders are to weave themselves webs.

No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I'm not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.

You can't legislate or litigate good, healthy behavior but we must be willing to educate people at an early age about the affects of unhealthy living.

The orbs create feedback loops that can influence either personal of employee behavior.

Many working mothers feel guilty about not being at home. And when they are there, they wish it could be perfect. This pressure to make every minute happy puts working parents in a bind when it comes to setting limits and modifying behavior.

You were saying that once when visiting Yale, you were struck that unlike Pound, Williams's thinking was volatile, I mean, did not stay locked into a pattern of concepts that then defined his subsequent necessary behavior, whereas Pound did.

We must consider the distinctive characters and the general nature of plants from the point of view of their morphology , their behavior under external conditions, their mode of generation, and the whole course of their life.

I have always had school sickness, as others have seasickness. I cried when it was time to go back to school long after I was old enough to be ashamed of such behavior.

The quality of moral behavior varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.

I always say centered food equals centered behavior.

Perhaps it is because cats do not live by human patterns, do not fit themselves into prescribed behavior, that they are so united to creative people.

I like analyzing human behavior. It's complex. That's what keeps me going.

It's better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you'll drift in that direction.

But you can't show some far off idyllic conception of behavior if you want the kids to come and see the picture. You've got to show what it's really like, and try to reach them on their own grounds.

We can only undo the election if the behavior meets the constitutional standard of subverting and threatening our system of government.

If you start using a medication in a person with autism, you should see an obvious improvement in behavior in a short period of time. If you do not see an obvious improvement, they probably should not be taking the stuff. It is that simple.

The experience and behavior that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation.

If Baltimore's view, that scientists who do not take the words of authorities are far removed from the ordinary behavior of scientists, prevails in the scientific community, then something fundamental, very serious, and very disturbing is happening to the scientific community.

Good behavior is the last refuge of mediocrity.

Everyone takes surveys. Whoever makes a statement about human behavior has engaged in a survey of some sort.

Rational behavior requires theory. Reactive behavior requires only reflex action.

Genocide is an attempt to exterminate a people, not to alter their behavior.

Study the public behavior of top stars and you can detect a keen attentiveness to brand value.

Even in decline, a virtuous man increases the beauty of his behavior. A burning stick, though turned to the ground, has its flame drawn upwards.

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.

Convinced that behavior and conduct are every bit as important as skills and expertise, I sought to build the firm into an enduring, values-based institution.