Source: Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902, p. 17
As quoted in Modern Dancing and Dancers (1912) by John Ernest Crawford Flitch, p. 105.
Context: To seek in nature the fairest forms and to find the movement which expresses the soul of these forms — this is the art of the dancer. It is from nature alone that the dancer must draw his inspirations, in the same manner as the sculptor, with whom he has so many affinities. Rodin has said: "To produce good sculpture it is not necessary to copy the works of antiquity; it is necessary first of all to regard the works of nature, and to see in those of the classics only the method by which they have interpreted nature." Rodin is right; and in my art I have by no means copied, as has been supposed, the figures of Greek vases, friezes and paintings. From them I have learned to regard nature, and when certain of my movements recall the gestures that are seen in works of art, it is only because, like them, they are drawn from the grand natural source.
My inspiration has been drawn from trees, from waves, from clouds, from the sympathies that exist between passion and the storm, between gentleness and the soft breeze, and the like, and I always endeavour to put into my movements a little of that divine continuity which gives to the whole of nature its beauty and its life.
“Perfection is the dream of imperfection that refuses to wake up.”
Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni
“We live as we dream - alone. While the dream disappears, the life continues painfully.”
Source: Heart of Darkness
The Mysterious Stranger (1916)
“Sick on a journey,
my dreams wander
the withered fields.”
旅に病で
夢は枯野を
かけ廻る
tabi ni yande
yume wa kareno wo
kake-meguru
Bashō's last poem, written while he was dying of a stomach illness. (Translation: Robert Hass)
Sick on a journey –
over parched fields
dreams wander on.
Basho, On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho, London, 1985, p. 81 (Translation: Lucien Stryk)
Travelling, sick
My dreams roam
On a withered moor.
Unknown translator
Individual poems
“If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream.”
