Inspiring Quote from book

September 17, 2006 at 6:25 PM

I am deep into my book about the Kulturbund now, and have passed many beautiful phrases in the last few days in their pages. I would like to quote one here, as it applies universally, I think, to anyone who uses music and it's art/spirit to get through trials and tribulations in hard times. Personal ones, national ones, family ones, or just the hardship of keeping up the unspeakable harshness of a career steeped in comepteition, doubt, desire, extacy, goal, realization and disappointment....aha. For another post, for sure. The discussion of what it is to live the life of a performing artist. Then again, a visual artist might have it worse in a free country, as it is very difficult sometimes to feel that they are fulfilling a sense of duty and work, a guilt of timelessness, and...whoa...reinging it in, I'm reigning it in now. Sorry. K. The quote that has inspired me in a week which found me searching the point of my career, where it is, and the how/why.

...part of a speech by "the Kubu's theater director, Julius Bab, in praise of Dr. Singer's courage, first evoking the poet Goethe's description of courage as that quality without which a human being 'would be better off never having been born.'
'This is not the courage of tensed muscles and a clouded brain', Bab went on. 'It is the courage that stems from the deepest realms of human consciousness. Only he who appreciates every day deeply, both the joys and worries that each day offers, and is able to remove himself from them, who truly gives h imself fully to the most elevated aspects of life, only he can possess the courage to live a life which transcends the personal. You will continue to experience trials and hard work....Not despite the despair of the times, but precisely because of the neediness of these times, we want and need to cultivate all the beautiful arts and we want to sustain our spirits by staying in touch with the noblest and most sustaining of life's offerings. Dear Dr. Singer, we thank you.'-pg 119

(in a letter from Dr. Singer, later):

We have developed a platform for Jews regardless of class and world view. Next to teh temple of religion we have built the temple of the stage, the temple of music....We have within our little realm understood our times without letting ourselves be overwhelmed by them. And thus we enter, strident and happy, ambitious and modest, content and yet unsatisfied with our achievements, the sixth eyar of our existence."-pg.132

-Martin Goldsmith, "The Inextinguishable Symphony".

Anyway. I found that inspiring.
Having a wonderfully lazy Sunday morning with the cats, covers, and books in bed.

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Inspiring Quote from book

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