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When we enlarge our view of the world, we deepen our understanding of our own lives.

Yo-Yo Ma

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Yo-Yo Ma
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: October 7
Actor
Cellist
Composer
Music Pedagogue
Musician
Paris
France
Yo Yo Ma
YoYo Ma
Unity
Diversity
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Views
Understanding
Lives
Deepen
World
Enlarge
Brotherhood

More quotes by Yo-Yo Ma

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I think that peace is, in many ways, a precondition of joy.
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People will ask, 'Are you famous?' And I always answer, 'My mother thinks so.'
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One is that you have to take time, lots of time, to let an idea grow from within. The second is that when you sign on to something, there will be issues of trust, deep trust, the way the members of a string quartet have to trust one another.
Yo-Yo Ma
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In performance, we have a greater purpose. The greater purpose is that we're communing together, and we want this moment to be really special for all of us. Because otherwise, why bother to have come at all? It's not about proving anything. It's about sharing something.
Yo-Yo Ma
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I learn something not because I have to, but because I really want to. That's the same view I have for performing. I'm performing because I really want to, not because I have to bring bread back home.
Yo-Yo Ma
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It's easy for me to care about Toronto, because Toronto is a community that cares about itself. It represents the world. It talks to itself, and because it does, it figures out that there must be a music garden as part of its existence.
Yo-Yo Ma
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I think there are so many ways to become interested in music. I believe signs of sustained interest gives a sense of the right time. Music, if thought of as a language, would perhaps indicate that as early as possible is not so bad. I do believe that a really nurturing first teacher that makes the child love something is crucial.
Yo-Yo Ma
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I remember when I was growing up. My great wish was to understand who I was and how I fit in the world.
Yo-Yo Ma
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Many of the Central Asians know Russian, and Ted Levin speaks it fluently. I speak Chinese, but Mongolian is completely different, so we had to have translators.
Yo-Yo Ma
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I play an instrument that has four strings, and I'm still trying to get it right. What I've tried to do in the process of playing these four strings is to try and understand the people I meet, the stories they have to tell. And then become an advocate for them and their stories through music.
Yo-Yo Ma
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When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.
Yo-Yo Ma
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I've been traveling all over the world for 25 years, performing, talking to people, studying their cultures and musical instruments, and I always come away with more questions in my head than can be answered.
Yo-Yo Ma
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Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.
Yo-Yo Ma
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Bach takes you to a very quiet place within yourself, to the inner core, a place where you are calm and at peace.
Yo-Yo Ma
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Our cultural strength has always been derived from our diversity of understanding and experience.
Yo-Yo Ma
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Music enhances the education of our children by helping them to make connections and broadening the depth with which they think and feel. If we are to hope for a society of culturally literate people, music must be a vital part of our children's education.
Yo-Yo Ma
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You go through phases. You have to reinvent reasons for playing, and one year's answer might not do for another.
Yo-Yo Ma
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When we have a good balance between thinking and feeling... our actions and lives are always the richer for it.
Yo-Yo Ma
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Music has always been transnational.
Yo-Yo Ma
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I think anybody who goes away finds you appreciate home more when you return.
Yo-Yo Ma