According to my principles, every master has his true and certain value. Praise and criticism cannot change any of that. Only the work itself praises and criticizes the master, and therefore I leave to everyone his own value.

Response to a story in the European Magazine which had accused him of harshly criticizing Joseph Haydn (14 September 1785), as quoted in Haydn, A Documentary Study (1981) by Howard Chandler Robbins Landon, p. 88