Martha Graham famous quotes

Misery is a communicable disease.
-- Martha Graham

#Attitude #Disease #Misery

Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
-- Martha Graham

#Inspirational #Life #Motivational

You are unique, and if that is not fulfilled, then something has been lost.
-- Martha Graham

#Life #Dance #Love Yourself

The body says what words cannot.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Body

Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Lying #Weather

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

#Believe #Learning #Athlete

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

#Dance #Heart #Dancing

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

#Men #Essence #Expression

No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Wisdom #Artist

What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.
-- Martha Graham

#Thinking #Perspective #People

All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.
-- Martha Graham

#Love #Dance #Dancing

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Passion #Dancing

Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place.
-- Martha Graham

#Nouns #Verbs #Theater

People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose. I was chosen to be a dancer, and with that, you live all your life.
-- Martha Graham

#People #Dancer #Chosen

A dancer must listen to his body and pay homage to it. Behind the movement lies this terrible, driving passion, this necessity. I won't settle for anything less.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Lying #Passion

Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Discovery #Dancing

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
-- Martha Graham

#Block #Yoga #Unique

'Age' is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.
-- Martha Graham

#Acceptance #Maturity #Years

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

#Dancer #Body #Awareness

Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Dancer #Holy

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

#Dance #Wings #Arms

Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to paradise of the achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration, there are daily small deaths.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Sleep #Frustration

There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Sleep #Body

Dancers have more bones than most people and on the days when you work hard you are sure that you have somehow accumulated more bones than you started with.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Hard Work #People

My dancing is not an attempt to interpret life in the literary sense. It is an affirmation of life through movement.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Dancing #Movement

It's what I always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Fun #Laughter

You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.
-- Martha Graham

#Inspirational #Practice #Class

Art is eternal for it reveals the inner landscape which is the soul of man.
-- Martha Graham

#Art #Men #Soul

Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body.
-- Martha Graham

#Inspirational #Dance #Dancing

It takes ten years, usually, to make a dancer. It takes ten years of handling the instrument, handling the material with which you are dealing, for you to know it completely.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Years #Instruments

Censorship is the height of vanity.
-- Martha Graham

#Vanity #Height #Censorship

We look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life. This is the function of the American dance.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Looks #Vigor

Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.
-- Martha Graham

#Inspirational #Motivational #Dance

You see, when weaving a blanket, an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Soul #Weaving

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.
-- Martha Graham

#Dancer #Use #Way

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. One becomes in some area an athlete of God.
-- Martha Graham

#Life #Dance #Education

First we have to believe, and then we believe.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Believe #Firsts

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.
-- Martha Graham

#Leadership #Being Strong #Work

The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Tree #Tree Of Life

In a dancer, there is a reverence for such forgotten things as the miracle of the small beautiful bones and their delicate strength.
-- Martha Graham

#Beautiful #Dance #Miracle

The unique must be fulfilled.
-- Martha Graham

#Unique #Fulfilled

It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
-- Martha Graham

#Expression #Compare #Valuable

Dancers are the messengers of the gods.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Dancing #Dancer

Nothing is more revealing than movement.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Dancing #Movement

No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a strange, divine dissatisfaction , a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
-- Martha Graham

#Blessed #Artist #Unrest

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

#Dance #Art #Body

Looking at the past is like lolling in a rocking chair. It is so relaxing and you can rock back and forth on the porch, and never go forward.
-- Martha Graham

#Past #Rocks #Chairs

Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It's a miracle, and the dance is a celebration of that miracle.
-- Martha Graham

#Inspirational #Dance #Thinking

Dance is communication, and so the great challenge is to speak clearly, beautifully and with inevitability.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Communication #Challenges

America does not concern itself now with Impressionism. We own no involved philosophy. The psyche of the land is to be found in its movement. It is to be felt as a dramatic force of energy and vitality. We move; we do not stand still. We have not yet arrived at the stock-taking stage.
-- Martha Graham

#Philosophy #Moving #Land

The only sin is mediocrity.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Mediocrity #Sin

Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Mean #Practice

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

#Body #Trusted #Honored

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

#Art #Breathing #Dancing

Modern dance isn't anything except one thing in my mind: the freedom of women in America.
-- Martha Graham

#Women #America #Mind

Dancing is a very living art. It is essentially of the moment, although a very old art. A dancer's art is lived while he is dancing. Nothing is left of his art except the pictures and the memories--when his dancing days are over.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Art #Memories

The center of the stage is where I am.
-- Martha Graham

#Stage

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

#Dance #Mean #Discipline

Dancers today can do anything; the technique is phenomenal. The passion and the meaning to their movement can be another thing.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Passion #Movement

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
-- Martha Graham

#Positive #Uplifting #Dance

The body is a sacred garment. It's your first and last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor.
-- Martha Graham

#Honor #Body #Sacred

Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.
-- Martha Graham

#Motivational #Dance #Song

Dance is the landscape of man's soul.
-- Martha Graham

#Men #Soul #Landscape

I want to make people feel intensely alive. I'd rather have them against me than indifferent.
-- Martha Graham

#People #Want #Alive

The secret to dancing is that it is about everything except dancing.
-- Martha Graham

#Dancing #Secret

If you feel depressed you shouldn't go out on the street because it will show on your face and you'll give it to others. Misery is a communicable disease.
-- Martha Graham

#Depression #Giving #Disease

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. The instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived ... the human body.
-- Martha Graham

#Dance #Heart #Fever