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

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.

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.

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.

True art consists in concealing art.

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

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