Now I come to 75 years of age, I think what's most important in life is your conscience. If you told a lie and made other people suffer, I think that's very difficult when you reach this age.
Interpretation
As one ages, the importance of living truthfully and ethically becomes more apparent.
Mstislav Rostropovich reflects on the significance of conscience as one grows older, emphasizing that the impacts of dishonesty and the suffering it causes to others weigh heavily on a person's mind. At 75, he suggests that the moral choices made throughout life are paramount, and facing past wrongdoings can be particularly challenging as one approaches the end of life. This insight underscores the importance of integrity and the repercussions of our actions on ourselves and others.
In practice
During a speech on personal growth, one might use this quote to emphasize the value of honesty.
Every man must have the right fearlessly to think independently and express his opinion about what he knows, what he has personally thought about and experienced, and not merely to express with slightly different variations the opinion which has been inculcated in him.
People are craving this great progress in electronics, going after computers, the Internet, etc. It's a giant progress technologically. But they must have a balance of soul, a balance for human beauty. That means art has an important role.
The artist must forget the audience, _x000D_ forget the critics, forget the technique, forget everything but love for the music._x000D_ Then, the music speaks through the performance,_x000D_ and the performer and the listener will walk together_x000D_ with the soul of the composer, and with_x000D_ God.
When I started learning the cello, I fell in love with the instrument because it seemed like a voice - my voice.
I know that after my letter there will be undoubtedly an 'opinion' about me, but I am not afraid of it. I openly say what I think. Talent, of which we are proud, must not be submitted to the assaults of the past.
All my life I wanted to play music with love to every member of the audience.
This fellow is wise enough to play the fool; And to do that well craves a kind of wit: He must observe their mood on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time, And, like the haggard, check at every feather That comes before his eye. This is a practise As full of labour as a wise man's art For folly that he wisely shows is fit; But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.
Small people delight in what they call consistency-that is, it gives them immense pleasure to say that they believe now exactly as they did ten years ago. This simply amounts to a certificate that they have not grown-that they have not developed-and that they know just as little now as they ever did. The highest possible conception of consistency is to be true to the knowledge of today, without the slightest reference to what your opinion was years ago.
Nothing is more characteristically juvenile than contempt for juvenility. . . youth's characteristic chronological snobbery.
The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.
You could say, in a vulgar Freudian way, that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child, I was most happy being alone. This has not changed.
Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.
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