Ballet Quotes

The purpose of art is higher than art. What we are really interested in are masterpieces of humanity.
-Alonzo King-

Technique--bodily control--must be mastered only because the body must not stand in the way of the soul's expression. The only reason for mastering technique is to make sure the body does not prevent the soul from expressing itself.
-La Meri-

A toe shoe is as eccentric as the ballerina who wears it: their marriage is a commitment.
-Toni Bentley-

I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them.
-Pablo Picasso-

Dancing is wonderful training for girls. It's the first way you learn to guess what a man is going to do before he does it.
-Christopher Morley-

Dancers are the athletes of God.
-Albert Einstein-

People don’t know that they are being controlled but they are looking where I say to look and they are listening to what I say. And the minute you have a full frontal nudity, they immediately are not looking where you want them to and they are immediately having conversations with each other. They immediately start to talk. They are making all sorts of comparisons if you are a man or a woman, so you have lost concentration. One of the things that started me on this was Robert Helpmann who was the Head of the English Ballet at the time of “Oh! Calcutta!” which was a naked musical, and it was a big thing, you know. They said to Robert Helpmann: “Would you ever do naked ballet?” So he said: “No.” They said: “Why not?” He said: “Because everything does not stop when the music does!” Now I think that is a very good reason because what he is saying is you lose the concentration. Concentration is when the music stops – bang! – you are done. If you are full frontal nude, you are still looking at things still moving. So never do full frontal nudity.
-Michael Caine-

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why they call it "the present."
-Eleanor Roosevelt-

Even if you weren't born with a genetically perfect body, you can take something like a hand, where everyone has the same capabilities, and you can make it speak. You can make it speak in many different ways.
-Sarah Lamb-

I knew my way around a stage and was strong, so I could lift my partners up and put them down softly. And the other thing that I understood was the importance of eye contact. It’s essential when you’re performing to remain connected with the person you’re dancing with. I see it on the stage all the time when the dancers drop out of character and for the “look at me thing.” They break that famous fourth wall and let the audience in on the dancer’s private thinking, not the character’s thinking. That will destroy a performance. 
-James Mitchell- The Dancer Within

The real beauty in life is that beauty can sometimes occur.
-Colum McCann-

To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.
-Agnes De Mille-

I get into the studio and I try to make visible what’s in the choreographer’s mind. Sometimes a choreographer wants you to have an idea, and sometimes you are the idea.
-Angel Corella, The Ballet Book-

A child sings before it speaks, dances almost before it walks. Music is in our hearts from the beginning.
-Pamela Brown-

Dance for yourself. If someone understands, good. If not, then no matter. Go right on doing what you love.
-Lois Hurst-

The ballet is a purely female thing. It is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener.
-George Balanchine-

Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's looking.
-Unknown-

Plie is the first thing you learn and the last thing you master.
-Suzanne Farrell-

Our pointe shoes are our instruments. If something’s wrong with my feet, all my mind goes there. I usually have six pairs ready. Soft shoes for one act, stiffer shoes for another, stronger shoes for a variation with a lot of turns.
-Nina Ananiashvili, The Ballet Book-

A pas de deux is a dialogue of love. How can there be conversation if one partner is dumb? 
-Rudolf Nureyev-

When I miss class for one day, I know it.n When I miss class for two days, my teacher knows it. When I miss class for three days, the audience knows it. 
-Rudolf Nureyev-

When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way. 
-Wayne Dyer-

A dancer, more than any other human being, dies two deaths: the first, the physical when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you would wish. After all, I choreographed for myself. I never choreographed what I could not do. I changed steps in Medea and other ballets to accommodate the change. But I knew. And it haunted me. I only wanted to dance. 
-Martha Graham-

Someone need not be perfect to be a great dancer – feeling a soul is more important than what the body can do. 
-Marcia Haydée-

Learning to walk sets you free. Learning to dance gives you the greatest freedom of all: to express with your whole self the person you are. 
-Melissa Hayden-

Poise is the finest point of balance it is possible to attain, both mentally and physically. The various parts of the physique having been adjusted truly to the centre of gravity, poise lifts the whole being to a point so delicate that it almost defies definition... Poise, the great law of equilibrium, is that second in infinity when action ceases and there is rest. 
-Ruby Ginner-

The actor should know how to use his body, and have every part of it completely under his command, that he may use the whole of himself to interpret any character in its own rhythm. Conversely the dancer should study emotion and character in order that his every movement may have meaning. 
-Ruby Ginner-

... the ultimate aim of all dance must be to move the whole being together in harmony. Therefore, having made the body sensitive, let it be swept by rhythm: the rhythm of music, by moving to a good swinging simple tune; the rhythm of nature, by floating in the sea, and surrendering to the will of the waves; or by lying on the branches of a tree in the wind to feel its effortless swaying. In this way the outer and the inner being will be harmonized... 
-Ruby Ginner-

To dance without the help of any other art, to express, not another's thought or rhythm, but the vision of the artist's own spirit, that is the highest form of dance. The most exquisite expressions are those when the spirit only makes the song, and the dancer moves in a beauty of silence akin to the silence of the stars. 
-Ruby Ginner-

The more you understand the music, the easier you can dance.
-Orlando Gutinez-

There are three steps you have to complete to become a professional dancer: learn to dance, learn to perform and learn how to cope with injuries. 
-D. Gere-

They're not particular about whether you're playing a flatted fifth or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance to it. 
-Dizzy Gillespie-

Minor things can become moments of great revelation when encountered for the first time. 
-Dame Margot Fonteyn-

The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking oneself seriously. The first is imperative and the second disastrous. 
-Dame Margot Fonteyn-

The mechanics of épaulement are what gives ballet its inner transitions. 
-William Forsythe-

I think Balanchine and Robbins talk to God and when I call, he's out to lunch. 
-Bob Fosse-

After I stopped dancing, I was unable to listen to beautiful music.
-Suzanne Farrell-

Although we do come from a silent profession, it is important for us to verbalize what we want to say. (As I tell my students): you could love someone all your life, but if you never say it how are they going to know? There comes a point when you have to say what you mean, which makes you scream louder when you dance. 
-Suzanne Farrell-

As soon as I hear music, something in me starts to vibrate. 
-Suzanne Farrell-

Dancers are a great breed of people. And they really want to dance so you don't have to beg them to work. However, dancers sometimes build walls around themselves because they are presenting themselves all the time: dancing is very much a confession. 
-Suzanne Farrell-

Fifth positions, heads, musicality, energy. Not technical things so much-getting your leg higher or doing more turns but things that would set you apart from other dancers. The only way you can be different is to be yourself If you don't find your spirit and reveal it, you just look like every other dancer. 
-Suzanne Farrell-

Even though I am a professional, and I know what the steps are, I don't quite know how I'm going to do them, because I haven't lived that moment yet. I always feel very insecure and I get very excited. 
-Suzanne Farrell-

I think it was important that I learned to love to dance eventually for its own sake, as opposed to wanting to be a ballerina. 
-Suzanne Farrell-

I was very happy that I was as normal as possible before I went into serious dance. 
-Suzanne Farrell-

It's a wonderful thing to be able to dance, tell your body what you want it to do. 
-Suzanne Farrell-

The dancer's body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul. The true dance is an expression of serenity; it is controlled by the profound rhythm of inner emotion. Emotion does not reach the moment of frenzy out of a spurt of action; it broods first, it sleeps like the life in the seed, and it unfolds with a gentle slowness. The Greeks understood the continuing beauty of a movement that mounted, that spread, that ended with a promise of rebirth. 
-Isadora Duncan-

The most essential thing in dance discipline is devotion, the steadfast and willing devotion to the labor that makes the class work not a gymnastic hour and a half, or at the lowest level, a daily drudgery, but a devotion that allows the classroom discipline to become moments of dancing too.
-Merce Cunningham-

The only way to do it is to do it. 
-Merce Cunningham-

A dance legacy must be performed in order to be preserved. 
-Ann Daly

Dance is your pulse, your heartbeat, your breathing. It's the rhythm of your life. It’s the expression in time and movement, in happiness, joy, sadness and envy. 
-Jacques d'Amboise-

Enjoy the process of learning to dance. The process of our profession, and not its final achievement, is the heart and soul of dance.
-Jacques d'Amboise

The dance world is too small in lots of ways – it's too intense, it rattles around itself, and it needs exposing to other ideas.
-Siobhan Davies-

The Dance instills in you something that sets you apart. Something heroic and remote.
-Edgar Degas-

Many other women kicked higher, balanced longer, or turned faster. These are poor substitutes for passion.
-Agnes de Mille-

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. 
-Robert Collier-

There is only one success--to be able to spend your life in your own way. 
-Christopher Morley-

You get more negative reactions than positive reactions as you go through life, and the big lesson is nobody counts you out but yourself...I never have; I never will.
-Buddy Ebsen-

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.
-Vince Lombardi-

The significance of a man is not in what he attains but in what he longs to attain. 
-Kahlil Gibran-

Who aims at excellence will be above mediocrity; who aims at mediocrity will be far short of it. 
-Burmese Saying-

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you. 
-Anonymous-

Never excuse yourself.
-Henry Ward Beecher-

Those who try never regret.
-David Ira Rottenberg-

It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly. 
-Isaac Asimov-

Talents are best nurtured in solitude, but character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world. 
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.
-Henry David Thoreau-

Ferocity doesn't care what it looks like.
-Maurya Kerr-

The artistic path is a fearless occupation.
-Alonzo King-

To change the world, you must first change yourself. And baby, that's hard enough.
-Alonzo King-

The world loves a clone and a good knock-off. It cheats the artist... In the obsession for technical wizardry, people disappear; and if your voice isn't present in a relationship, you don't matter.
-Alonzo King-

The deep art... That's the part that has to be guarded like a miser would his money... Like a dope addict would his dope... Like a lover with their love.
-Alonzo King-

Be IN it. Get drunk in the moment.
-Alonzo King-

In life, as in dance, grace glides on blistered feet.
-Alice Abrams-

To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gifts - absolute gifts - which have not been acquired by one's own effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul... The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies.
-Kate Chopin, The Awakening-

Why are we inspired by another person's courage? Maybe because it gives us the sweet and genuine surprise of discovering some trace, at least, of the same courage in ourselves.
-Laurence Shames-

The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you you're not good enough. On occasion, some may be correct. But do not do their work for them. Seek any job; ask anyone out; pursue any goal. Don't take it personally when they say 'no' - they may not be smart enough to say 'yes.'
-Keith Olbermann-

It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.
-Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love, after the Bhagavad Gita-

In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down.
-Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love-

Great creativity begins with tolerance.
–Yo-Yo Ma-

Tricks well-mastered are called techniques. Techniques half learned are merely tricks.
-Ralf Dean Omar-

Our classes are our practices.
Our dance sneakers are our equipment.
Our teacher is our coach.
Our dance clothes are our jerseys.
Our performances are our matches.
Our audiences are our fans.
Our concert is our tournament.
The rhythm is our rule.
Failure is our opponent; we will not lose.
This is our game. This is our sport. 
-Vala Yankovski-

Expect the best and you seldom get less. 
-Mellissa Taylor-

Why be normal? What's the point? 
-Richard Saunders-

The secret to genius is to carry the spirit of a child into old age, which means never loosing your enthusiasm. 
-Aldous Huxley-

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire. 
-Reggie Leach-

Being alive is about playing to win. Being brain dead is when you play not to loose. 
-Richard Saunders-

If they give you ruled paper, write the other way. 
-Juan Ramon Jimenez-

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down. 
-Mary Pickford-

Living fearlessly is not the same thing as never being afraid. It's good to be afraid occasionally. Fear is a great teacher. 
-Michael Ignatieff-

Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential. 
-Sir Winston Churchill-

Throw your heart out in front of you… and run ahead to catch it. 
-proverb-

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly. 
-Albert Einstein-

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. 
-Albert Eistein-

It would be better if you begin to teach others only after you yourself have learned something. 
-Albert Einstein-

One must shy away from questionable undertakings, even when they bear a high-sounding name. 
-Albert Einstein-

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. 
-John F. Kennedy-

A child mis-educated is a child lost. 
-John F. Kennedy-

A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality. 
-John F. Kennedy-

Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress.
-Thomas Edison-

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
-Thomas Edison-

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. 
-Thomas Edison-

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking. 
-Thomas Edison-

A genius is a talented person who does his homework. 
-Thomas Edison-

Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with preparation. 
-Thomas Edison-

Every generation needs a new revolution. 
-Thomas Jefferson-

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins. 
-Ben Franklin-

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. 
-Ben Franklin-

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves. 
-Abraham Lincoln-

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. 
-Abraham Lincoln-

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance and that in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things. 
-Teddy Roosevelt-

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. 
-Eleanor Roosevelt-

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. 
-Eleanor Roosevelt-

This art, born of genius and good taste, can become beautiful and varied to an infinite degree. 
-J.G. Noverre-

Dancing and ballets would undoubtedly take on a new lease on life, if the customs established by a spirit of fear and jealousy did not in some way close the path of glory... 
-J.G. Noverre-

In order to dance well, nothing is so important as the turning outwards of the thigh; and nothing is so natural to men as the contrary position. 
-J.G. Noverre-

The abuse of the best things is always detrimental. 
-J.G. Noverre-

True art consists in concealing art. 
-J.G. Noverre-

It is shameful that dancing should renounce the empire it might assert over the mind and only endeavor to please the sight. 
-J.G. Noverre-

A fine picture is but the image of nature; a finished ballet is nature herself. 
-J.G. Noverre-

If our ballets be feeble, monotonous and dull, if they be devoid of ideas, meaning, expression and character, it is less the fault of the art than that of the artist. 
-J.G. Noverre-

At our theaters we only see feeble copies of the copies that have proceeded them, renounce that slavish routine which keeps your art in its infancy; examine everything relative to the development of talents; be original; form a style for yourselves based on your private studies; if you must copy, imitate nature, it is a noble model and never misleads those who follow it. 
-J.G. Noverre-

I cannot avoid condemning all those who, from self-conceit have the pretension to imitate great artists of the past. If their powers of emotion be weak, their powers of expression will be likewise. 
-J.G. Noverre-

In order that our art may arrive at the degree of the sublime which I demand and hope for, it is imperative for dancers to divide their time and studies between the mind and the body, and that both become the object of their application; but, unfortunately, all is given to the latter and nothing to the former. The legs are rarely guided by the brain, and, since intelligence and taste do not reside in the feet, one often goes astray. 
-J.G. Noverre-

Applause lavished at a whim and without discernment, often proves the ruin of young people training for a stage career. 
-J.G. Noverre-

I know that applause is food for the arts, but it ceases to be whole-some if administered indiscriminately; and the nutrition is so rich that, far from strengthening the constitution, it disturbs and enfeebles it. Stage beginners are similar to those children totally spoiled by the blind affection of their parents. 
-J.G. Noverre-

The defect in wisdom and taste which exists among the majority of dancers is due to the bad education which they generally receive. They apply themselves only to the material side of their art, they learn to jump more or less high, they strive mechanically to execute a number of steps, and like children, who utter a great many words devoid of sense and relation, they execute many phrases of steps devoid of taste and grace. 
-J.G. Noverre-

I should never conclude were I to speak to you of all the misfortunes which have their origin in the faulty carriage of the body. All these defects, mortifying for those who have contracted them, cannot be remedied except in their early stages. A habit born in childhood is strengthened in youth, becomes deeply rooted in adulthood and is incurable in old age. 
-J.G. Noverre-

No matter the style, the farther one goes the more obstacles increase, and the more distant appears the object it is desired to attain. Again, the most strenuous labor affords the greatest artists but a disquieting gleam which only reveals their inadequacy, while the self-satisfied ignoramus surrounded by the deepest gloom flatters himself that he has nothing more to learn. 
-J.G. Noverre-

It is not a question of skimming the surface of the art, it must be probed to its depths, for to seize upon superficial things only is to degenerate into mediocrity and obscurity. 
-J.G. Noverre-

The defects born of habit are innumerable. I see every child occupied in some way in disarranging and disfiguring his physique; some displace the ankles through the habit they have contracted of standing on one leg only and playing, as it were, with the other; placing it in a position which though disagreeable and strained, does not fatigue them, because the softness of their tendons and muscles lend themselves to all kinds of movement. 
-J.G. Noverre-

The mind of man is capable of anything-because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. 
-Joseph Conrad-

I did not arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind. 
-Albert Einstein-

All great truths begin as blasphemies. 
-George Bernard Shaw-

A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. 
-James Joyce-

The state of least excitation of consciousness is the field of all possibilities. 
-Maharishi Mahesh Yogi-

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge. 
-Albert Einstein-

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. 
-Albert Einstein-

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the law of the universe will be simpler. 
-H.D. Thoreau-

Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days... What you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it. 
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-

The game of life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy. 
-Florence Shinn-

The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious. 
-John Sculley-

Never let formal education get in the way of your learning. 
-Mark Twain-

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life’s about creating yourself.
- George Bernard Shaw-

We do not have to become heroes overnight….Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.
-Eleanor Roosevelt-

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. 
-Eleanor Roosevelt-

I think the key is for women not to set any limits. 
-Martina Navratilova-

Those who believe they can and those who believe they can’t are both right. 
- Anonymous-

Don't wait. The time will never be just right. 
-Napoleon Hill-

Goals are dreams with deadlines. 
-Diana Scharf Hunt-

Fairy Tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
-G.K. Chesterton-

Dream as if you'll live forever, Live as if you'll die today.
-James Dean-

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about dancing in the rain!
-Anonymous-

If you don’t have a plan for yourself, you’ll be part of someone else’s. 
-American Proverb-

Dancing is like life: it's good to have a plan, but be prepared to improvise.
-Anonymous-

Attack life, it's going to kill you anyway. 
-Steven Coallier-

If you want the rainbow, you've got to put up with the rain. 
-Dolly Parton-

Endurance is patience concentrated. 
-Thomas Carlyle-

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. 
-Robert Brault-

THE FOLLOWING ARE MORE LIKE WITTY T-SHIRT AND COFFEE MUG BLURBS.....

If it bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny.

You have never seen a real workout until you have seen a dancer practice.

Of course, I have an ATTITUDE. I'm a Dancer!

"Ballet. The Few. The Proud. The Pink."

Dancers have the best BUNS!!

Dancers' Attitudes Never Cease, Ever!

I brake for dancers.

Dance is Life. Everything else is just Details!

Ballet dancers always have a POINTE!

Dancers Turn Out Better!

If you got it, flaunt it! DANCE!

Those who hear not the music think the dancers mad.

Discover the pointe . . . DANCE!

Eat, Drink, Sleep, DANCE.

You wouldn't understand: It's a DANCE thing!

If I have to explain Dancing to you, you won't get it.

Ballet. It's Gotta Be The Shoes!

It's Hard To Be Humble When You're A Dancer!

DANCE is JOY. DANCE is LOVE. DANCE is what DREAMS are made of.

If you don't have the attitude, WHY DANCE?

Don’t judge me until you have walked the world in my dance shoes.

Football players practice. DANCERS WORK!

Athletes dance. Everyone else just plays a game.

Dance is life. The rest is just rehearsal.

Ballet... nothing else matters!

If you don't dance, no second glance!

Been there... Danced that...

To dance or not to dance? What a STUPID question!

If I can't dance in heaven, let me live here forever.

Dancing gets on your brain and makes you crazy, but it’s a good crazy, like love.

It doesn't matter where you are on the stage, just as long as you're there.

You can dance anywhere, even if only in your heart.

If dance were easy, they'd call it figure skating.

Flexible people never get bent out of shape!!

Shoot for the moon, for even if you miss you will still be amongst the stars.

A dancer can live without food, water, and sleep, as long as they are able to dance.

God gave you toes so pointe them!

All the world's a stage -- so dance on it!

You can only perform as well as you do in practice.

The body may learn the steps, but only the spirit can dance!

Just shut up and DANCE!

Practice makes perfect!

If ballet was easy, then everyone would be doing it.

Dancing with the feet is one thing, but dancing with the heart is another.

You can't make a pointe, if you don't understand the details.

If you watch a game, it’s fun. If you play it, it’s recreation. If you work at it, it’s dance.

Why do I dance?.....Why do I breathe?

A poor dancer blames her shoes.

Dance isn't just about fancy footwork. It requires grace, discipline, and major muscles.

I can't. I have rehearsal!

Nice men marry dancers; real men become dancers!

Real men lift women.

If all the world's a stage, I want better lighting!

Source : http://balletconnections.com/balletquotes