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

Martha Graham

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

Dance Meaning Movement Passion Technique
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

Choice Dance Life People Yourself
In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Art Breathe End One Liner
My dancing is not an attempt to interpret life in the literary sense. It is an affirmation of life through movement.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Life Literature Movement
I don’t think in art there is ever a precedent; each moment is a new one and terrifying and threatening and bursting with hope.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Art Hope Myself Thinking Threat
Dancers are the messengers of the gods.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance God Message
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

Death Live Ourselves Past People Time
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

Area Athlete Dance God Learning Live Oneself Practice
What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Business People Thinking World Yourself
My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Children Darkness Time
The secret to dancing is that it is about everything except dancing.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Exception Freedom Secret
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

Dance Essence Expression Feeling Hope Human Myself Soul Wonderful
When you start with an idea, or something hits you, then you have to follow that through to the end, and it’s the following through to the end that makes the pattern. That, for me, is choreography.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance End Ideas Myself Pattern Start
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

Excuse Man Oneself Reason Willing
Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Desire Invitation Perfection Practice
Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Dedication Holy Inspirational One Liner Passion Place Stand
The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Art Body Creature Dance Instrument Yourself
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

Creativity Lost Pattern Time Unique
I did not choose to be a dancer. I was chosen.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Choice Dance Myself Willing
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

Alive Artist Divine Satisfaction Strange Time
The world I’m interested in is the one where things are not named.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Interest Name Oneself World
Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Dance Hide Language
You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels – a leaf feels, a storm feels – what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it’s a cultivated speech.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Cultivate Feeling Right Storm Technique Yourself
Repetition not for monotony but the ecstasy it induces.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Boredom Happiness Repeat
The body says what words cannot.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body One Liner Word
I believe one thing: that today is yesterday and tomorrow is today and you can’t stop.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Believe Day Future Myself Past Time
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

Body Celebration Dance Magic Miracle Small Yourself

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

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

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More Martha Graham Quotes