Ballet Quotes

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  The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.

  Norman Vincent Peale

  Success, Dance, Positivity

  Dr. Norman Vincent Peale (2003). “The Power of Positive Thinking: 10 Traits for Maximum Results”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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• Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Dance, Dancing, Legs

  Charles Baudelaire (2001). “The Prose Poems and La Fanfarlo”, p.22

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• Ballet is a dance executed by the human soul.

  Alexander Pushkin

  Dance, Dancing, Soul

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• The ballet needs to tell its own story in such a way it can be received without having to be translated into language.

  Twyla Tharp

  Way, Needs, Stories

  "Tharp's New Tale, Woven In Dance" by Gia Kourlas, www.nytimes.com. February 03, 2012.

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

  Martha Graham

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "The Runner's Book of Daily Inspiration: A Year of Motivation, Revelation, and Instruction". Book by Kevin Nelson, p. 11, 1999.

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• Dancers are the athletes of God.

  Albert Einstein

  Dance, Philosophical, Athlete

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• The domain of the ballet dancer is not earth but air.

  Lincoln Kirstein

  Air, Dancer, Earth

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• You go to the ballet and you see girls dancing on their tiptoes. Why don't they just get taller girls?

  Greg Ray

  Girl, Dancing, Tiptoes

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• Ballet is completely unnatural to the body, just being turned out... it's not the way your body is supposed to function, so you actually [...] train your body to be a different structure than you were born with.

  Neve Campbell

  Different, Body, Way

  Interview with Steve Head, www.ign.com. January 5, 2004.

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• If you wanna dance, a windshield wiper'll do it-all you need is a beat.

  Artie Shaw

  Needs, Beats, Ifs

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• People who leave Washington do so by way of the box... ballet or coffin.

  Clay Pell

  People, Politics, Way

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  The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. Bodies never lie.

  Agnes de Mille

  Dance, Lying, Women

  Agnes De Mille (1980). “America dances”, Macmillan Pub Co

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• Classical ballet will never die.

  Ninette de Valois

  Dance, Art, Classic

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• 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.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Art, Superficial Things, Depth

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• 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.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Children, Way, Doe

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• Come knit hands, and beat the ground in a light fantastic round

  John Milton

  Light, Hands, Fantastic

  Comus l. 143 (1637)

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• And then he danced,-all foreigners excel the serious Angels in the eloquence of pantomime;-he danced, I say, right well, with emphasis, and a'so with good sense-a thing in footing indispensable: he danced without theatrical pretence, not like a ballet-master in the van of his drill'd nymphs, but like a gentleman.

  Lord Byron

  Angel, Nymphs, Gentleman

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• I'm enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that's considered artistic, there's a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can't exist without it.

  Steve Martin

  Art, Looks, World

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• I started taking ballet lessons when I was 4, and I was performing in ballet companies when I was 10, and I did summer stock in Miami Beach when I was 12, and finally I said, 'I gotta go to Broadway.'

  Rita Rudner

  Summer, Beach, Lessons

  "Lovely Rita: Comedian Rita Rudner Revels in Writing Career". lasvegassun.com. January 25, 2002.

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• I wanted to give people - which is fairly bizarre considering my whole life is contemporary dance really - I wanted to give people a really fulfilling sense that they had seen a white classical ballet - in a very pure form.

  Graeme Murphy

  White, People, Giving

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• Ballet is only good when it is great.

  Arlene Croce

  Dance, Ballet Dance, Ballet Dancer

  Arlene Croce (1977). “Afterimages”, Random House Inc

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• Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.

  Martha Graham

  Leadership, Being Strong, Work

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• Some people think that movements, such as the movements in ballet, are a higher cultural expression, whereas some are just dirt. I think it is elitist to think that a trained movement is more acceptable than untrained and possibly unrehearsed movements.

  Yoko Ono

  Thinking, Expression, People

  "Walking on Thin Ice: A Career-Spanning Conversation With Yoko Ono". Interview with Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, www.spin.com. November 06, 2013.

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• When I was a little kid, I took tap and ballet. I've always loved to dance. I'm a rhythm machine.

  Tommy Lee

  Music, Dance, Kids

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

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Careers, People, Training

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