Great Throughts Treasury

"The magic of listening brings us closer to the central core of the universe. To begin to comprehend... life it is not sufficient to touch and see."

"Despite predisposition in India's favor, I have to acknowledge that Indian music took me by surprise. I knew neither its nature nor its richness, but here, if anywhere, I found vindication of my conviction that India was the original source."

"As mistress, there is no winning her except by incessant victories over oneself, by demonstrations of perfect control ... The Guarnerius ... a phenomenon of coherent asymmetries, a fellow human mercifully absolving the player of his gaffes ... whose earthier voice belies the fact that it is often slightly smaller than most Strads, sings through its pores and sings de profundis. One need not rise above oneself, for it appeals to the natural man."

"Actually, I was gazing in my usual state of being half absent in my own world and half in the present. I have usually been able to 'retire' in this way. I was also thinking that my life was tied up with the instrument and would I do it justice?"

"Each human being has the eternal duty of transforming what is hard and brutal into a subtle and tender offering, what is crude into refinement, what is ugly into beauty, ignorance into knowledge, confrontation into collaboration, thereby rediscovering the child?s dream of a creative reality incessantly renewed by death, the servant of life, and by life the servant of love."

"Even at the risk of losing all the golden eggs of the future, I had to find out what made the goose lay those eggs"

"Enescu will always stand for the Absolute through which I'm judging the others."

"Do we not find freedom along the guiding lines of discipline?"

"First and foremost, yoga made its contribution to my quest to understand consciously the mechanics of violin playing, a quest which by 1951 had long been one of the themes of my life. All influences pointed to less tension, more effective application of energy, the breaking down of resistance in every joint, the coordination of all motions into one motion; and illustrated the profound truth that strength comes not from strength but from the subtle comprehension of process, proportion and balance."

"Homeopathy is one of the few medical specialties which carries no penalties -- only benefits."

"Homeopathy is the safest and more reliable approach to ailments and has withstood the assaults of established medical practice for over 100 years"

"I can only think of music as something inherent in every human being - a birthright. Music coordinates mind, body and spirit."

"I imagine that whatever contribution I can make to teaching derives from having had to rethink and re-create my technique."

"I often say I was born old and I get younger with the years."

"If I wanted to play the violin, I had to work. Because anything that one wants to do really, and one loves doing, one must do every day. It should be as easy to the artist and as natural as flying is to a bird. And you can?t imagine a bird saying well, I?m tired today, I?m not going to fly!"

"Improvisation is the expression of the accumulated yearnings, dreams, and wisdom of the soul."

"If you took an electric drill or a pile driver, tuned it so that it sounded a note, amplified it a hundred times and then played it over a public square, it would sound to the people forced to live nearby much as this concert sounded to me. [after a Rolling Stones concert]"

"I would hate to think I am not an amateur. An amateur is one who loves what he is doing. Very often, I'm afraid, the professional hates what he is doing. So, I'd rather be an amateur."

"India is the primal source, the mother country."

"In eight hours of concentrated practice between my twice-weekly lessons, I memorized the A major and played it for Persinger. [At age 7]"

"In playing Beethoven the violinist should be a medium. There is little that is personal or that can be reduced to ingratiating sounds, pleasing slides and so on. Everything is dictated by the significance, the weight, structure and direction of the notes and passages themselves."

"It is a technique ideally suited to prevent physical and mental illness and to protect the body generally, developing an inevitable sense of self-reliance and assurance."

"It is absolutely vital to hold it as lightly as possible - rather as one might pick up a newborn bird... One should feel, in the right arm, the sensation of the bowhair on the strings... The moment tension or hardness enters... the vibrations will not be felt. [On the bow-hold]"

"It is absolutely vital to hold [the bow] as lightly as possible ? rather as one might pick up a newborn bird."

"I've had marvelous and incredible luck, and devoted parents, sisters, friends, and teachers. What more can one ask? These things contribute enormously. Probably the major part of one's success is due to these factors."

"It is music that welds spiritual and sensual, that can convey ecstasy free of guilt, faith without dogma, love as homage, and a person at home with nature and the infinite."

"Its purpose is to unite one's soul and discipline one's body, to make one sensitive to the infinite within one, to unite one's breath of space, one's vibrations with the vibrations of the cosmos."

"It is perhaps life's greatest accomplishment to live to old age, maintaining one's wits, one's sense of humor, one's health, and one's charm."

"Many people do not realize that it takes considerably more art and skill to play the violin lightly than it does to play it loudly. Indeed, the best possible training for young violinists is learning to play pianissimo and without pressure."

"Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous."

"Mozart resolved his emotions on a level that transformed them into moods uncontaminated by mortal anguish, enabling him to express the angelic anguish that is so peculiarly his own."

"Learning an imposed method seemed not in my nature"

"Music is a therapy. It is a communication far more powerful than words, far more immediate, far more efficient."

"Music lives and breathes to tell us who we are and what we face. It is a path between ourselves and the infinite."

"My childhood was remarkably free from the deforming effects of competition. The standards against which I measured my achievements were the highest, and the attempt was made in reverent awe, not in a desire to be acknowledged superior."

"Obliged to find an apartment of their own, my parents searched the neighborhood and chose one within walking distance of the park. Showing them out after they had viewed it, the landlady said: "And you'll be glad to know I don't takeJews." Her mistake made clear to her, the anti-Semitic landlady was renounced, and another apartment found. But her blunder left its mark. Back on the street my mother made a vow. Her unborn baby would have a label proclaiming his race to the world. He would be called "The Jew" [Yehudi]."

"One should feel in the right arm the vibration of the bow hair on the strings... The moment tension or hardness enters into the hand then of course the vibrations will not be felt- they cannot penetrate."

"One cannot bargain with Bartok."

"That India should offer me at once a homeland and a new-found land with lasting power to astonish seemed only right, for it is precisely the reconciling of contradictions within an all-accepting unity that is the country's genius and its abiding appeal to me. India, I feel, has softened my Talmudical adjudications between right and wrong, upheld innocent acceptance of the lovely things of life, given me much that was new yet welcome, understandable, waiting to experienced."

"Rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous."

"Peace may sound simple - one beautiful word - but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal."

"The Astronomy of the Hindus has formed the subject of excessive admiration."

"The art of creation lies in the gift of perceiving the particular and generalizing it, thus creating the particular again. It is therefore a powerful transforming force and a generator of creative solutions in relation to a given problem. It is the currency of human exchanges, which enables the sharing of states of the soul and conscience, and the discovery of new fields of experience."

"The best teacher is the one who himself has had to struggle to learn."

"The idea that a pupil is a passive recipient, a container waiting to be filled by the teacher's knowledge and instruction - all this is nonsense. Teaching is a living relationship, of give and take, of mutual learning."

"The meaning of life lies in the oneness of all creation, which combines supreme diversity with supreme interdependence... We are one with creation in time and space."

"The practice of yoga induces a primary sense of measure and proportion. Reduced to our own body, our first instrument, we learn to play it, drawing from it maximum resonance and harmony."

"The servant of another man's vision."

"The teacher offers guidance here and there, but the primary factor, the driving force, in your relationship and work together is the student's own commitment and desire to learn. Teaching is like sailing: The wind and the sails give the boat its motion. Your role (as a teacher) is to steer and guide."

"The violinist is that particularly human phenomenon distilled to a rare potency ? half tiger, half poet."