47 Quotes by Ignacy Jan Paderewski

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

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

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.

When I miss a week in practice, my audience knows it. When I miss a day, I know it.

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?

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?

Intellectual isolation always follows commercial isolation.

I loved your country [America] before I knew it.

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