Welcome to our collection of quotes by Pablo Casals. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Pablo Casals
Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan: [ˈpaw kəˈzalz i ðəfiˈʎo]; 29 December 1876 – 22 October 1973), usually known in English by his Spanish name Pablo Casals, was a Catalan and Puerto Rican cellist, composer, and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century and one of the greatest cellists of all time. He made many recordings throughout his career of solo, chamber, and orchestral music, including some as conductor, but he is perhaps best remembered for the recordings of the Bach Cello Suites he made from 1936 to 1939. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy (though the ceremony was presided over by Lyndon B. Johnson).
To retire is to die.
Each second that we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that never was before and never will be again.
The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border.
There is no substitute for work; what seems ease of performance comes from the greatest labor.
Don't play the notes. Play the meaning of the notes.
The capacity to care is what gives life its most deepest significance.
The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.
The Cello is like a beautiful woman who has not grown older, but younger with time, more slender , more supple , more graceful.
We must all work to make the world worthy of its children.
It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.
The answer to helplessness is not so very complicated.
I don't have hobbies. I have passions.
You do not lose your value or preciousness when you grow to be a adult. You are still that miraculous creation. You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.
To retire is the beginning of death.
Throughout my career, nervousness and stage-fright have never left me before playing. And each of the thousands of concerts I have played at, I feel as bad as I did the very first time.
I do not think a day passes in my life in which I fail to look with fresh amazement at the miracle of nature.
The only weapons I ever had were my cello and my baton.
Of course, I continue to play and to practice. I think I would do so if I lived for another hundred years.
As long as one can admire and love, then one is young forever.
In music, in the sea, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of kindness... I see what people call God in all these things.
I am an old man but in many senses a very young man. And this is what I want you to be, young, young all your life.
Do we dare to be ourselves?' This is the question that counts -- and not, 'Must a man be helpless?' ...A man can do something for peace without having to jump into politics.
For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner... I go to the piano, and I play preludes and fugues of Bach... It is a sort of benediction on the house.
The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? There is a brotherhood among all men. This must be recognized if life is to remain. We must learn the love of man.
Real understanding does not come from what we learn in books; it comes from what we learn from love of nature, of music, of man. For only what is learned in that way is truly understood.
The situation is hopeless, we must take the next step.
I am a very simple man. I am a man first, an artist second. My first obligation is to the welfare of my fellow man. I will endeavour to meet this obligation through music, since it transcends language, politics and national boundaries.
The truly important things in life -- love, beauty, and one's own uniqueness -- are constantly being overlooked.
You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.
Don't be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that; it was not of your doing. What you do with your talent is what matters.
The person who works and is never bored is never old. Work and interest in worthwhile things are the best remedy for age.
Kenneth Hari's art work shall influence mankind.
Rock n' roll is poison put to sound.
The art of not playing in tempo -- one has to learn it. And the art of not playing what is written on the printed paper.
The cello is like a beautiful woman who has not grown older, but younger with time, more slender, more supple, more graceful.
I have always regarded manual labour as creative and looked with respect-and, yes, wonder-at people who work with their hands. It seems to me that their creativity is no less than that of a violinist or painter.
For twelve years I studied and worked at them every day, and I was nearly 25 before I had the courage to play one of them in public. Before I did, no violinist or cellist had ever played a Suite in its entirety.
What do we teach our children? ... We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique ... You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything.
Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe; a moment that never was before and never will be again.
Beauty is all about us, but how many are blind! They look at the wonder of this earth and seem to see nothing. People move hectically but give little thought to where they are going. They seek excitement ... as if they were lost and desperate.
Thank God, I'll never have to play the cello again.
To the whole world you might be just one person, but to one person you might just be the whole world.
The heart of the melody can never be put down on paper.
Music will save the world.
To retire is to begin to die.
The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?
Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.
The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all.
I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.
Man has made many machines, complex and cunning, but which of them indeed rivals the workings of his heart?
The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.
Let us not forget that the greatest composers were also the greatest thieves. They stole from everyone and everywhere.
You must work -- we must all work to make the world worthy of its children.
I am perhaps the oldest musician in the world. I am an old man but in many senses a very young man. And this is what I want you to be, young, young all your life, and to say things to the world that are true.
The first thing to do in life is to do with purpose what one purposes to do.
The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.
We ought to think that we are one of the leaves of a tree, and the tree is all humanity. We cannot live without the others, without the tree.