Quote

I believe that we learn by practice... it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which come shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit.

Martha Graham

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Martha Graham
Age: 96 †
Born: 1894
Born: May 11
Died: 1991
Died: April 1
Artist
Ballet Dancer
Ballet Master
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Dancer
Music Pedagogue
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Martha Grehem
Physical
Performance
Intellectual
Shape
Practice
Performances
Learn
Satisfaction
Ballet
Sense
Dancing
Precise
Spirit
Achievement
Dedicated
Come
Shapes
Dancer
Believe
Dance
Acts

More quotes by Martha Graham

Image
My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.
Martha Graham
Image
I want to make people feel intensely alive. I'd rather have them against me than indifferent.
Martha Graham
Image
I love words very much. I've always loved to talk, and I've always love words — the words that rest in your mouth, what words mean and how you taste them and so on. And for me the spoken word can be used almost as a gesture.
Martha Graham
Image
You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.
Martha Graham
Image
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
Image
Nobody cares if you can't dance well.
Martha Graham
Image
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
Image
Dance is communication, and so the great challenge is to speak clearly, beautifully and with inevitability.
Martha Graham
Image
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
Image
The unique must be fulfilled.
Martha Graham
Image
One can always lament, you know — but to laugh in the face of life, that's very hard. And for me the great tragedian should also be a great comedian.
Martha Graham
Image
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
Image
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 of time, this expression is unique.
Martha Graham
Image
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
Image
Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.
Martha Graham
Image
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
Image
The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.
Martha Graham
Image
The main thing, of course, always, is the fact that there is only one of you in the world, just one, and if that is not fulfilled then something has been lost. Ambition is not enough necessity is everything.
Martha Graham
Image
I use the words gods and goddesses principally, I think, to mean beautiful bodies - bodies that are absolute instruments. And I believe in discipline, I believe in a very definite technique.
Martha Graham
Image
I'm asked so often whether I believe in life after death. I do believe in the sanctity of life, the continuity of life and of energy. I know the anonymity of death has no appeal for me. It is the now that I must face and want to face.
Martha Graham