21 Pablo Casals Quotes

Pablo Casals quotes

1. This is the greatest honour I have ever received in my life. Peace has always been my greatest concern. Yet in my childhood I learned to love it. My mother-an exceptional, brilliant woman-used to speak to me about it when I was still a child, because in those years there were also a lot of wars. Moreover, I am Catalan. Catalonia had the first democratic Parliament much before than England. And it was in my country where there was a beginning of united nations. At that time-the eleventh Century-they met in Toluges-today in France-to speak about peace, because the Catalonian people of that time were already against war. That is why, the United Nations, which work only for the ideal of peace, are in my hearth, because everything relating to peace goes directly there.

2. I have not played the cello in front of an audience since long years but I think I must do it this time. I am going to play a melody from the Catalonian folklore: The singing of the Birds. Birds, when in the sky, go singing: Peace, peace, peace. And this is a melody that Bach, Beethoven and all great people would have admired and loved. And, in addition, it springs up from the soul of my country: Catalonia.

3. The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?

4. Music is not just sound.

5. Maybe music will save the world.

6. The most important thing in music is what is not in the notes

7. . . . his playing . . . is one of those rare things that may only come once in a lifetime and even not in one person's life, it may be centuries before there is anyone like that again. He is a funny little fellow only about 30 and plays with his eyes shut practically the whole time, every note every pause and tone colour is reflected in his face and to hear him again, to draw the bow across is a revelation.

1. 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.

2. I was at Mount Tamalpais near San Francisco hiking when a boulder came hurling down the mountainside and smashed my left hand. When I looked at my mangled bloody fingers, I had a strange reaction. 'Thank God I will never have to play again,' I said. The fact is that dedication to one's art does involve a sort of enslavement.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Say things to the world that are true.

6. 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.

7. The situation is hopeless, we must take the next step.

8. You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.

9. Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe; a moment that never was before and never will be again.

10. The only weapons I ever had were my cello and my baton.

11. 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.

12. I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.

13. To retire is the beginning of death.

14. It takes courage for people to listen to their own goodness and act on it.