Where Love is Deep (Shin’ichi Suzuki)
[p3] I have pledged that from today on I will not be satisfied unless I make every one of my students a fine violinist. Since my resolution is firm, although some of you may have no hope of improving, I am sorry but you will have to face your bad luck with no choice but to become fine players. For everyone becomes good if only he applies himself properly. [p3] I did not encourage them to advance in pieces. Instead, all the students did their best toward fostering a fine tone and musical performance. Let the student hastily advance in pieces: you will have a dropout. I won't do such a clumsy thing. [p6] I was fortunate enough, when twenty, to wake to a phrase in a book by an early nineteenth century agronomist Sontoku Ninomiya: “Read not ten thousand volumes; explore the logic of the heavens.” From that day, I followed his teaching to “penetrate the truth of great nature yourself, do not just read books,” turning my eyes to everything before me and to the natural world. [p12] In tal...