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The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. Bodies never lie.
Agnes De Mille
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The essence of a culture is reflected through its artistic expressions like dance and music.

Agnes De Mille's quote emphasizes that the authentic and deepest expressions of a community are showcased through their dances and music. These art forms transcend words, revealing emotions, stories, and truths that may not be easily articulated, highlighting the sincerity of human experience and connection.

Themes

DanceMusicExpressionCultureArt

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the importance of cultural heritage, one might say, 'As Agnes De Mille once said, 'The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music.'

More from Agnes De Mille

Ours is an upbeat, a hurried, hasty beat. It keeps pressing us to go farther, to include everything so that we can savor everything, so that we can know everything, so that we will miss nothing. Partly it's greed, but mainly its curiosity. We just want to experience it. And we do.
Agnes De MilleRead
No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.
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Ballet technique never becomes easy, it becomes possible
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To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.
Agnes De MilleRead
We can't stand silence, because silence induces thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.
Agnes De MilleRead
Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.
Agnes De MilleRead

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A little wisdom, now and then

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Quote by Agnes De Mille | QuoteProject