Martha Graham quotes - page 3

There is a fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration; there are daily small deaths. (Martha Graham)

You can be Eastern or Burmese or what have you, but the function of the body and the awareness of the body results in dance and you become a dancer, not just a human being.

Martha Graham

I believe that we learn by practice.

Martha Graham

I think comedy is the most difficult thing in the world, I really do.

Martha Graham

Nothing is more revealing than movement.

Martha Graham

First we have to believe, and then we believe.

Martha Graham

The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.

Martha Graham

Dancing is very like poetry. It's like poetic lyricism, sometimes, it's like the rawness of dramatic poetry, it's like the terror - or it can be like a terrible revelation of meaning. Because when you light on a word it strikes you to your heart.

Martha Graham

Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for -- liberation.

Martha Graham

I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of man--the landscape of his soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be.

Martha Graham

All things I do are in every woman. Every woman is Medea. Every woman is Jocasta. There comes a time when a woman is a mother to her husband. Clytemnestra is every woman when she kills. (Martha Graham)

The past is not dead it is not even past. People live on inner time the moment in which a decisive thought or feeling takes place can be at any time. Timeless feelings are common to all of us.

Martha Graham

The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted.

Martha Graham

I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of mankind - the landscape of the human soul.

Martha Graham

Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to paradise of the achievement is not easier than any other.

Martha Graham

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.

Martha Graham

Learn by practice.

Martha Graham

I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. in each it is the performance of a dedicated set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes the shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes in some areas an athlete of God.

Martha Graham

Our arms start from the back because they were once wings.

Martha Graham

We are all of us, unique - each a unique pattern of creativity and if we do not fulfill it, it is lost for all time.

Martha Graham

I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired. (Martha Graham)

What I do must be done in the sunlight of awareness.

Martha Graham

In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing.

Martha Graham

It takes about ten years to make a mature dancer. The training is twofold. There is the study and practice of the craft in order to strengthen the muscular structure of the body. The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted. The movement become clean, precise, eloquent, truthful. Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. This might be called the law of the dancer's life, the law which governs its outer aspects.

Martha Graham

I believe that we learn by practice... it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which come shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit.

Martha Graham

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