Martha Graham Quotes

The ballet. I saw in the fugitive beauty of a dancer's gesture a symbol of life. It was achieved at the cost of unending effort but, with all the forces of gravity against it, a fleeting poise in mid-air, a lovely attitude worthy to be made immortal in a bas-relief, it was lost as soon as it was gained and there remained no more than the memory of an exquisite emotion. So life, lived variously and largely, becomes a work of art only when brought to its beautiful conclusion and is reduced to nothingness in the moment when it arrives at perfection.

He moved like a dancer, which is not surprising; a horse is a beautiful animal, but it is perhaps most remarkable because it moves as if it always hears music.

Even when she walks one would believe that she dances.

Baseball is beautiful....the supreme performing art. It combines in perfect harmony the magnificent features of ballet, drama, art, and ingenuity.

I am very obsessed with ballet now because it is a very difficult sport and a beautiful one because it is not about money. It's not like playing football or tennis - dance has no sponsors, it's just for the beauty. Maybe it is the only last pure sport.

Ballet is a riddle of means and ends.

The dancer's trembling heart must bring everything into harmony, from the tips of her shoes to the flutter of her eyelashes, from the ruffles of her dress to the incessant play of her fingers.

For me, choreography is a process of physical thinking. It's very much in mind as well as in body.

I had danced when I was younger, until I was about 12, and I always idealized it, as most young girls do, as the most beautiful art. It's an expression without words.

There are times when the simple dignity of movementcan fulfill the function of a volume of words.

He looked at her. She was pretty still, with thick hair and soft eyes, and she moved so gracefully that it almost seemed as though she were gliding. He'd seen beautiful women before, though, women who caught his eye, but to his mind, they usually lacked the traits he found most desirable. Traits like intelligence, confidence, strength of spirit, passion, traits that inspired others to greatness, traits he aspired to himself.

Every object is beautiful in motion; a ship under sail, trees gently agitated with the wind, and a fine woman dancing, are three instances in point

Someone once said that dancers work just as hard as policeman, always alert, always tense. But I don't agree with that because policeman don't have to look beautiful at the same time.

I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable.

All due respect, and trying to be as modest as I can be: I am a dancer.

When I dance, I look like I'm a dad at a prom. I never grasped my limbs. Ever since puberty I've just kind of felt like we don't understand each other.

Whoever is loved is beautiful, but the opposite is not true, that whoever is beautiful is loved.

Physical beauty and ugliness is not very important. The real thing is the inner. I can teach you how to be beautiful from within, and that is real beauty. Once it is there, your physical form won't matter much. Your eyes will start shining with joy; your face will have a gleam, a glory. The form will become immaterial. When something starts flowing from within you, some grace, then the outer form is just put aside.

Zidane is unique. The ball flows with him. He is more like a dancer than a football player.

You are so beautiful to me.

Let us first teach little children to breathe, to vibrate, to feel, and to become one with the general harmony and movement of nature. Let us first produce a beautiful human being, a dancing child.

Dancing cheek to cheek.

It is the mission of all art to express the highest and most beautiful ideals of man.

A beautiful person among the Greeks, was thought to betray by this sign some secret favor of the immortal gods; and we can pardonpride, when a woman possesses such a figure that wherever she stands, or moves, or leaves a shadow on the wall, or sits for a portrait to the artist, she confers a favor on the world.

It is their nature, beautiful and simple. That you would destroy such beings, Mr. Lincoln, such superior creatures, seems madness to me.” “That you speak of them with such reverence, Mr. Poe, seems madness to me.” "Can you imagine it? Can you imagine seeing the universe through such eyes? Laughing in the face of time and death—the world your Garden of Eden? Your library? Your harem?