“Movement never lies.”
A phrase she often used, which she credited to her father.
Misattributed
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Martha Graham 48
American dancer and choreographer 1894–1991Related quotes
I Am A Dancer (1952)
Context: The body is shaped, disciplined, honoured, and in time, trusted. The movement becomes clean, precise, eloquent, truthful. Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. This might be called the law of the dancer's life — the law which governs the outer aspects.
“Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.”
"As He Grows Old" (p. 87)
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)
“Never confuse movement with action.”
As quoted by Marlene Dietrich, who added "In those five words he gave me a whole philosophy." Pt. 1, Ch. 1
Papa Hemingway (1966)
Variant: Never mistake motion for action.
Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 5
“Thought can never capture the movement of life, it is much too slow.”
Source: Mind is a Myth (1987), Ch. 3: Not Knowing Is Your Natural State
Context: Thought can never capture the movement of life, it is much too slow. It is like lightning and thunder. They occur simultaneously, but sound, travelling slower than light, reaches you later, creating the illusion of two separate events.
From a tape recording (1977-11-18) to be played in the event of his assassination, quoted in Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982), p. 276
“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”
Section 65, Ch.14 Unifying Agents
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Source: Art & Other Serious Matters, (1985), p. 55, "Evidences of Surreality"