Top 43 Quotes & Sayings by Yehudi Menuhin

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.

The violinist is that peculiarly human phenomenon distilled to a rare potency - half tiger, half poet.

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

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.

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

Improvisation is not the expression of accident but rather of the accumulated yearnings, dreams and wisdom of our very soul.

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.

In all teaching there must be a fusion of authority as an adult providing a stable framework for the children in one's care, and humility as another human being ready to educate an equal who may turn out to be a superior.

Why is compassion not part of our established curriculum, an inherent part of our education? Compassion, awe, wonder, curiosity, exaltation, humility - these are the very foundation of any real civilization, no longer the prerogatives, the preserves of any one church, but belonging to everyone, every child in every home, in every school.

We are living in a world where the individual must learn to command the raw materials of expression. He must not be dependent all the time on the ready-made, the finished product. It's the transferring, the changing of the raw into what is the expression of your own self – the whole joy and satisfaction and frustration of life is built into this.

We embark unhesitatingly on the path, in a direction that is absolutely right and urgent, supported by everyone, in the knowledge that this path is but a learning process

To play great music, you must keep your eyes on a distant star.

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

There are no rules in the service of God, and this itself is no rule.

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.

I would hate to think I am not an amature. 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.

A society without its dreamers can never be free.

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

Life is not a finished product, it is only what we make of it, and if we make nothing of it, someone else will, and we will be his slave.

To be an outstanding musician, you have to be very attentive to the smallest detail and willing to have infinite patience in the pursuit of your ideal. You require absolute control and professionalism.

There are three levels of service. The highest level is that of one who performs good deeds the whole day and yet feels that he has not acheived anything. The second level is someone who, though he has not done anything, knows that he has not corrected anything in this world. This is good, and there is hope for him that he might correct his ways. However, someone who is righteous in his own eyes deceived himself all his life; his good deeds will be lost.

We embark unhesitatingly on the path, in a direction that is absolutely right and urgent, supported by everyone, in the knowledge that this path is but a learning process... We have to keep on learning, creating, applying, by-passing, touching upon, refining and clarifying a number of notions and details that need to be improvised and applied and which, thank God, we cannot foresee. The only rigidity lies in our will, our conviction that we are on the right road and that our initiatives are most pressing.

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 everyday. 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!

Each human being has the eternal duty of turning what is hard and brutal into a tender and subtle offering, what is crude into an object of refinement, what is ugly into a thing of beauty, confrontation into collaboration, ignorance into knowledge, hereby rediscovering the child's dream of a creative reality incessantly renewed by death, the servant of life, and by life the servant of love

I still look to music to heal and bind; I still think the musician can be a trusted object offering his fellow-man solace but also a reminder of human excellence.

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.

A way of life which excludes the realm of the unknown and the mysterious is simply not in harmony with life itself.

We are full of rhythms . . . our pulse, our gestures, our digestive tracts, the lunar and seasonal cycles.

The violinist is that peculiarly human phenomenon distilled to a rare potency---half tiger,half poet.

The ultimate aim in life should be to fulfill to the utmost all that within our ability and to share that which is good and beautiful.

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.

Searching and the route we take are more important than making a find.

In reality, infinity is merely the distance to the heart of a stranger. Eternity is the moment of cognition.

A dream is unrehearsed.

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

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.

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.

Everyone should in some way be creative, irrespective of the quality of that which he creates.

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

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

Our life must have an aim, but we must also ensure that the direction we take is a good one.

Music creates order out of chaos.

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