Pablo Casals
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.Collection: Creativity
How could anybody think of Bach as 'cold' when these [cello] suites seem to shine with the most glittering kind of poetry," Casals said. "As I got on with the study I discovered a new world of space and beauty... the feelings I experienced were among the purest and most intense in my artistic life!Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Art
When we play an unaccompanied Bach suite we may compare ourselves to an actor in Shakespeare's day, creating scenery which did not exist at all, through the power of declamation and suggestion. So in Bach. There is but one voice -- and many voices have to be suggested.Collection: Voice
To retire is the beginning of death.Collection: Retirement
The answer to helplessness is not so very complicated.Collection: Answers
The truly important things in life - love, beauty, and one's own uniqueness - are constantly being overlooked.Collection: Inspirational Life
The situation is hopeless, we must take the next step.Collection: Next Steps
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.Collection: Art
As long as one can admire and love, then one is young forever.Collection: Love
Rock n' roll is poison put to sound.Collection: Rocks
Do we dare be ourselves? That is the question that counts.Collection: Healing
Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted. I don't accept it.Collection: Integrity
The simplest things in music are the ones that count. The simplest thing are, of course, also the most difficult to achieve and take years of work.Collection: Years
I see in the melody of Nature, God. It is a wonderful work of art. The spirit of the art is wonderful. And I feel that I am myself because I have never taken music lightly. Music is the manifestation of God, like everything else.Collection: Art
For me, Bach is like Shakespeare. He has known all and felt all. He is everything.Collection: Felt
You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.Collection: Motivational
When you play Bach like Chopin, and Chopin like Bach, something good happens.Collection: Play
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.Collection: What Matters
Bach is the supreme genius of music... This man, who knows everything and feels everything, cannot write one note, however unimportant it may appear, which is anything but transcendent. He has reached the heart of every noble thought, and has done it in the most perfect way.Collection: Writing
The greatest respect an artist can pay to music is to give it life.Collection: Music
Of course, I continue to play and to practice. I think I would do so if I lived for another hundred years.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Past
I do not think a day passes in my life in which I fail to look with fresh amazement at the miracle of nature.Collection: Thinking
If you play Bach every day, you are not so alone.Collection: Play