Paderewski Quotes & Sayings

If I do not practice one day; I know it. If I do not practice the next, the orchestra knows it; if I do not practice the third day, the whole world knows it. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Just as surely as every new language mastered opens up a new world, so knowledge of a Beethoven, a Chopin, or a Schumann opens up a new world in spiritual beauty and thought. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

I am inclined to believe that some music, like certain poetry, finds its appeal and way to all. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Rhythm is the pulse of music. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Art is the expression of the immortal part of man. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

You could harbor a man in your bed or your body, play on his nervous system like Paderewski at the keyboard, and not shift his brain one inch out of the concrete of dogma. (p. 5) — Jonathan Lethem

If I miss one day of practice, I notice it. If I miss two days, the critics notice it. If I miss three days, the audience notices it. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Beginnings play their prized part in every finished human accomplishment, for beginnings mean the birth of added progress. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

The Pole listening to Chopin listens to the voice of his whole race. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

I established a certain standard of behavior, that, during my playing, there must be no talking. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Every new generation in its hour of dawn, filled with the dreams of youth, its thirsts, intoxications and enthusiasms, thinks itself called upon to impel humanity towards heights unmeasured, believes itself an appointed pathfinder, a thinker of thoughts, a doer of deeds greater than any of those which came before. Every new generation desires beauty, but a beauty all its own. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

The great familiar musical works are always greeted by the audiences as ever welcome and beloved friends. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

The ultimate necessity is the summoning of the mind and will to do their duty. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

The very essence of success is practice. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

There flows throughout our whole history a stream of humanity, of generosity, of tolerance, so broad, so powerful, and so pure that it would be vain indeed to look for a similar one in the past of any other European country. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

You are a dear soul who plays polo, and I am a poor Pole who plays solo. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Fatherland before everything, art afterward. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

A man is not necessarily a master because he happened to compose two or three centuries ago. Let us beware of the worship of mere antiquity. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Art must be a slow and normal evolution. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

There have been a few moments when I have known complete satisfaction, but only a few. I have rarely been free from the disturbing realization that my playing might have been better. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

My father ran the gamut: a favorite of his was Josef Hofmann, but there was also Friedman, Rachmaninoff, Godowsky, Lhevinne, Moiseiwitsch, Paderewski, etc. — Marc-Andre Hamelin

Change follows change in us, almost without transition; we pass from blissful rapture to sobbing woe; a single step divides our sublimest ecstasies from the darkest depth of spiritual despondency. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Is there anything more true than human pain? Is there anything more sincere than the cry for help from those who suffer? Only a great wave of mankind's pity can surmount an immense wave of human misery? — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

When I miss a week in practice, my audience knows it. When I miss a day, I know it. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

The genius is the man who has genuine and deep human relations with others, who does not cut himself off in the search for originality, but who realizes the value of artistic tradition. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

It is not from choice that my life is music and nothing more, but when one is an artist what else can he be? When a whole lifetime is too short to attain the heights he wants to reach, how then can he devote any of the little time he has to things outside of his art? — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Before I was a genius I was a drudge. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Man is naturally lazy, therefore he invents labor-saving devices. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

True originality has its foundations in the soul, not in the mind, and when there is an effort to create something different it is usually a failure. Beethoven or Schumann or Chopin did not try to be original. They were original. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Musical expression is never primarily national, but is personal and individual rather. It is so deep, so profound, that it goes beyond and below nationality and gives voice to the most private feeling. In music there is never exact heredity. Each man is an individual. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

I suppose that Paderewski can play superbly, if not quite at his best, while his thoughts wander to the other end of the world, orpossibly busy themselves with a computation of the receipts as he gazes out across the auditorium. I know a great actor, a master technician, can let his thoughts play truant from the scene ... — Minnie Maddern Fiske

I owe my sucess in one per cent to my talent, in ten per cent to luck, and in ninety per cent to hard word. Work, work, and more work is the secret to success. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

I am nothing! If you could know the dream of what I would like to be, you would realize how little I have accomplished. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

I loved your country [America] before I knew it. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Art is great only when it bears the stamp of the individual. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

When one is an artist, what else can he be? — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

America, the country of my heart, my second home. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

I cannot imagine a genuinely happy home without music in it. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Piano playing is more difficult than statesmanship. It is harder to awake emotions in ivory keys than it is in human beings. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

The culture of any country is gauged first by its progress in art. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Music is the only art that actually lives. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

I do not believe, as do so many musicians, that genius should be left to fight its way to the light. Genius is too rare, too precious, to be permitted to waste the best years of life
the years of youth and lofty dreams
in a heart-breaking struggle for bread. To starve the soul with the body is to do worse than murder. Think, too, of what the public loses! — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

The mere fact of knowing that a great audience waits on your labor is enough to shake all your nerves to pieces. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Art without technique is invertebrate, shapeless, characterless. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Chopin was an invalid, as you know, but his music was volcanic. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Intellectual isolation always follows commercial isolation. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Music expresses first of all sadness rather than joy. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski