Pablo Casals

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

To the whole world you might be just one person, but to one person you might just be the whole world.

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!

The first thing to do in life is to do with purpose what one purposes to do.

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

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.

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.

Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted. I don't accept it.

To retire is the beginning of death.

Don't play the notes. Play the meaning of the notes.

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.

Do we dare be ourselves? That is the question that counts.

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.

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