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

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.

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

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.

The abuse of the best things is always detrimental.

I know that applause is food for the arts, but it ceases to be wholesome 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.

I will make an average man into an average dancer, provided he be passably well made. I will teach him how to move his arms and legs, to turn his head. I will give him steadiness, brilliancy and speed but I cannot endow him with that fire and intelligence, those graces and that expression of feeling which is the soul of true pantomime.