To have real knowledge, one must understand the essence of things and not only their manifestations.

Tradition demands that we not speak poorly of the dead.

I can't stand being in Chicago anymore and hearing the Brahms Violin Concerto in the elevator. Because that shows me that when they come to the concert hall they listen to it in the same way.

Jewish intellectuals contributed a great deal to insure that Europe became a continent of humanism, and it is with these humanist ideals that Europe must now intervene in the Middle East conflict.

And in English you have this wonderful difference between listening and hearing, and that you can hear without listening, and you can listen and not hear.

Today, conducting is a question of ego: a lot of people believe they are actually playing the music.

European anti-Semitism goes much further back than to the partition of Palestine and the establishment of Israel in 1948. It even goes further back than the Holocaust.