Yehudi Menuhin Quotes

40 Sourced Quotes

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.

Yehudi Menuhin
This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the awful significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It is unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a code of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and achieve a society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet deny the sharing of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling amongst them.

Yehudi Menuhin
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.

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

Yehudi Menuhin
The violinist must possess the poet's gift of piercing the protective hide which grows on propagandists, stockbrokers and slave traders, to penetrate the deeper truth which lies within.

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

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

Yehudi Menuhin
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.

Yehudi Menuhin
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.

Yehudi Menuhin
There comes a time when the student turns his back on the teacher. His playing cannot have the necessary security, autonomy, self-faith, or communicative power until he believes his interpretation is his own.

Yehudi Menuhin