Applause is a receipt, not a bill.
Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
Applause that comes thundering with such force you might think the audience merely suffers the music as an excuse for its ovations.
Glorious bouquets and storms of applause are the trimmings which every artist naturally enjoys. But to move an audience in such a role, to hear in the applause that unmistakable note which breaks through good theatre manners and comes from the heart, is to feel that you have won through to life itself. Such pleasure does not vanish with the fall of the curtain, but becomes part of one's own life.
O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.
They named it Ovation from the Latin ovis [A Sheep].
To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still.
We believe that the applause of silence is the only kind that counts.
We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.