The body says what words cannot.
Martha GrahamRead
What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.
Interpretation
It's essential to prioritize your own self-perception over the opinions others have of you.
This quote by Martha Graham emphasizes the importance of self-acceptance and the idea that external judgments should not dictate your sense of self-worth. It suggests that focusing on what others think can lead to unnecessary anxiety and distract from personal growth and authenticity.
In practice
During a motivational workshop about self-esteem.
The body says what words cannot.
Nobody cares if you can't dance well.
Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.
No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a strange, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.
Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.
Knowledge and human power are synonymous.
To accept one’s past – one’s history – is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.
The distinction between pretending you are better than you are and beginning to be better in reality is finer than moral sleuth hounds conceive.
The Buddha’s principal message that day was that holding on to anything blocks wisdom. Any conclusion that we draw must be let go. The only way to fully understand the bodhichitta teachings, the only way to practice them fully, is to abide in the unconditional openness of the prajna, patiently cutting through all our tendencies to hang on.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.