Constantin Quotes & Sayings

Things are not difficult to make; what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them. — Constantin Brancusi

I thought if only I had a keen, shapely bone structure to my face or could discuss politics shrewdly or was a famous writer Constantin might find me interesting enough to sleep with.
And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he would sink into ordinariness, and if as soon as he came to love me I would find fault, the way I did with Buddy Willard and the boys before him. — Sylvia Plath

In my early youth - he would later write to his friend, the philosopher Constantin Noica - seduced me solely the libraries and the brothels. — Emil Cioran

All action in theatre must have inner justification, be logical, coherent, and real. — Constantin Stanislavski

All art is autobiographical - if it's not, it's not going to quicken on-stage, and it's not going to come alive. — Constantin Stanislavski

Whoever does not detach himself from the ego never attains the Absolute and never deciphers life. — Constantin Brancusi

I want just the flash of its spirit. — Constantin Brancusi

Remember: there are no small parts, only small actors. — Constantin Stanislavski

In art, one does not aim for simplicity; one achieves it unintentionally as one gets closer to the real meaning of things. — Constantin Brancusi

The first theatre I ever found was in the backyard of a new suburban community in the foothills of the Poconos. My dad was a young FBI agent at his first or second posting - we're all from New York. He was posted in Scranton, Pennsylvania and he put the family in a brand new red-brick apartment. It was in a C-shape and behind it was a small hill that led up to the woods. There was a white-washed brick wall that was a perfect theatre! There were windows and all the ladies behind the windows in their apartments. I would go out there after lunch every day and sing opera. — Constantin Stanislavski

We have as many planes of speech as does a painting planes of perspective which create perspective in a phrase. The most important word stands out most vividly defined in the very foreground of the sound plane. Less important words create a series of deeper planes. — Constantin Stanislavski

The direct effect on our mind is achieved by the words, the text, the thought, which arouse consideration. Our will is directly affected by the super-objective, by other objectives, by a through line of action. Our feelings are directly worked upon by tempo-rhythm. — Constantin Stanislavski

Of course, if you have thought up to now that an actor relies merely on inspiration you will have to change your mind. Talent without work is nothing more than raw unfinished material. — Constantin Stanislavski

In spite of my great admiration for individual splendid talents I do not accept the star system. Collective creative effort is the root of our kind of art. That requires ensemble acting and whoever mars that ensemble is committing a crime not only against his comrades but also against the very art of which he is the servant. — Constantin Stanislavski

Remember this practical piece of advice: Never come into the theatre with mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing - all the things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art - at the door. — Constantin Stanislavski

The character has to have some kind of arch. The character has to go through an event, and be changed by the human event. — Constantin Stanislavski

In the creative process there is the father, the author of the play; the mother, the actor pregnant with the part; and the child, the role to be born. — Constantin Stanislavski

The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation. — Constantin Stanislavski

Talent is nothing but a prolonged period of attention and a shortened period of mental assimilation. — Constantin Stanislavski

Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art. — Constantin Stanislavski

The language of the body is the key that can unlock the soul. — Constantin Stanislavski

When we are no longer children we are already dead — Constantin Brancusi

Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it. — Constantin Stanislavski

Success is transient, evanescent. The real passion lies in the poignant acquisition of knowledge about all the shading and subtleties of the creative secrets. — Constantin Stanislavski

Nothing grows well in the shade of a big tree. — Constantin Brancusi

The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of argument would be incomprehensible. — Constantin Brancusi

There hasn't been any art yet. Art is just beginning. — Constantin Brancusi

Sinister is the breath that fills our wings, for what are we? What are we beneath skin and feathers?" His question was not left without an answer; Magnus made good on it. "We are the children of incestuous and obscene demons. We are scavengers. We smell the scent of death carried forth by the winds. And once we are past our decade, our thirst for knowledge and survival dims; and we consider ourselves fortunate. For with age comes wisdom, and with age comes death. A murder of crows awaits us all. — Serban Valentin Constantin Enache

Gratuitous cruelty borders on the pathological, psychotic and that becomes uninteresting because there is no choice. — Constantin Stanislavski

Simplicity is not an objective in art, but one achieves simplicity despite one's self by entering into the real sense of things. — Constantin Brancusi

When we are on stage, we are in the here and now. — Constantin Stanislavski

Never allow yourself externally to portray anything that you have not inwardly experienced and which is not even interesting to you. — Constantin Stanislavski

Never lose yourself on the stage. Always act in your own person, as an artist. The moment you lose yourself on the stage marks the departure from truly living your part and the beginning of exaggerated false acting. Therefore, no matter how much you act, how many parts you take, you should never allow yourself any exception to the rule of using your own feelings. To break that rule is the equivalent of killing the person you are portraying, because you deprive him of a palpitating, living, human soul, which is the real source of life for a part. — Constantin Stanislavski

In life we listen to other people. Listen with varying degrees of concentration and attention, right? Actors must learn to listen in a different way. — Constantin Stanislavski

Who am I? What will I be? Why am I here? Where am I going? — Constantin Stanislavski

Doubt is the enemy of creativeness. — Constantin Stanislavski

The person you are is a thousand times more interesting than the best actor you could ever hope to be. — Constantin Stanislavski

Young actors, fear your admirers! Learn in time, from your first steps, to hear, understand and love the cruel truth about yourselves. Find out who can tell you that truth and talk of your art only with those who can tell you the truth. — Constantin Stanislavski

When an actor is completely absorbed by some profoundly moving objective so that he throws his whole being passionately into its execution, he reaches a state we call inspiration. — Constantin Stanislavski

Except we were there, and I was in a vengeful mood. My cousin was still in Bebbanburg. Aethelhelm was trying to destroy my daughter and her husband. Constantin had humiliated me by driving me from my ancestral land. I had not seen Eadith, my wife, in a month. So someone had to suffer. — Bernard Cornwell

I thought it would be the way I'd feel if I ever visited Europe. I'd come home, and if I looked closely into the mirror I'd be able to make out a little white Alp at the back of my eye. Now I thought that if I looked closely into the mirror I'd see a doll-size Constantin sitting in my eye and smiling out at me — Sylvia Plath

It is through you, actors, that the forces which are understood by millions and that tell of everything that is beautiful on earth, find expression. The forces which reveal to people the happiness of living in a widened consciousness and in the joy of creative work for the whole world. You, the actors of a theatre, which is one of the centres of human culture, will never be understood by the people if you are unable to reflect the spiritual needs of your time, the now in which you are living. — Constantin Stanislavski

When you're playing a character who's cruel, look for the places where he's kind. When you're playing a character who is unhappy, look for the places where he has a glint of merriment. — Constantin Stanislavski

Work like a slave; order like a king; create like a god. — Constantin Brancusi

Work like a slave; command like a king; create like a god. — Constantin Brancusi

It is only when an actor feels that his inner and outer life on the stage is flowing naturally and normally, in the circumstances that surround him, that the deeper sources of his subconscious gently open, and from them come feelings we cannot always analyse. — Constantin Stanislavski

Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave. — Constantin Brancusi

A true priest is aware of the presence of the altar during every moment that he is conducting a service. It is exactly the same way that a true artist should react to the stage all the time he is in the theater. An actor who is incapable of this feeling will never be a true artist. — Constantin Stanislavski

The life of a character should be an unbroken line of events and emotions, but a play only gives us a few moments on that line - we must create the rest to portray a convincing life. — Constantin Stanislavski

The habit of shedding blood, or even of seeing it shed, corrupts all sentiment of humanity. — Constantin-Francois Chasseboeuf

The actor must use his imagination to be able to answer all questions (when, where, why, how). Make the make-believer existence more definite. — Constantin Stanislavski

What is important to me is not the truth outside myself, but the truth within myself. — Constantin Stanislavski

In every physical action, unless it is purely mechanical, there is concealed some inner action, some feelings. This is how the two levels of life in a part are created, the inner and the outer. They are intertwined. A common purpose brings them together and reinforces the unbreakable bond. — Constantin Stanislavski

Simplicity is complexity resolved — Constantin Brancusi

You must be so thoroughly immersed in the given circumstances of the play, then you decide what it is at any given moment what that the actor wants. — Constantin Stanislavski

The work of art expresses precisely those things which do not die. It must do so, however, in a form that bears witness to the artist's own era. — Constantin Brancusi

Theories are patterns without value. What counts is action. — Constantin Brancusi

Architecture is inhabited sculpture. — Constantin Brancusi

To see far is one thing, going there is another. — Constantin Brancusi

The greatest wisdom is to realize one's lack of it. — Constantin Stanislavski

Don't go so deep in yourself that you no longer exist for your partner and for the character and for the play. — Constantin Stanislavski

I ground matter to find the continuous line. And when I realized I could not find it, I stopped, as if an unseen someone had slapped my hands. — Constantin Brancusi

In the given circumstances you must be rooted in the play. Do not depart from the play. Don't cut yourself off from your partner in the scene, or partners. — Constantin Stanislavski

I refused [to study under Rodin] because nothing grows under large trees. — Constantin Brancusi

Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you. — Constantin Stanislavski

Our demands are simple, normal, and therefore they are difficult to satisfy. All we ask is that an actor on the stage live in accordance with natural laws. — Constantin Stanislavski

They are imbeciles who call my work abstract. That which they call abstract is the most realistic, because what is real is not the exterior but the idea, the essence of things. — Constantin Brancusi

Nothing can grow under big trees. — Constantin Brancusi

I do not aspire to be in fashion. For what is in fashion, goes out of fashion
If, on the contrary, your work is contested today, it doesn't matter.
For when it is finally understood, it will be for eternity. — Constantin Brancusi

You'll never see any two good actors approach a role in the same way. — Constantin Stanislavski

Constantin Demiris had arranged with the authorities for her body to be buried on the grounds of the cemetery on Psara, his private island in the Aegean. Everyone had remarked on what a beautiful, sentimental gesture it was. In fact, Demiris had arranged for the burial plot to be there so that he could have the exquisite pleasure of walking over the bitch's grave. — Sidney Sheldon

Don't look for obscure formulas or mystery in my work. It is pure joy that I offer you. Look at my sculptures until you see them. Those closest to God have seen them. — Constantin Brancusi

At times of great stress it is especially necessary to achieve a complete freeing of the muscles — Constantin Stanislavski

Why talk about sculpture when I can photograph it? — Constantin Brancusi

What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things ... it is impossible for anyone to express anything essentially real by imitating its exterior surface. — Constantin Brancusi

I tried to imagine what it would be like if Constantin were my husband.
It would mean getting up at seven and cooking him eggs and bacon and toast and
coffee and dawdling about in my nightgown and curlers after he'd left for work to wash up the dirty plates and make the bed, and then when he came home after a lively, fascinating day he'd expect a big dinner, and I'd spend the evening washing up even more dirty plates till I fell into bed, utterly exhausted. This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A's, but I knew that's what marriage was like, because cook and clean and wash was just what Buddy Willard's mother did from morning till night, and she was the wife of a university professor and had been a private school teacher herself. — Sylvia Plath

When you see a fish you don't think of its scales, do you? You think of its speed, its floating, flashing body seen through the water. Well, I've tried to express just that. If I made fins and eyes and scales, I would arrest its movement, give a pattern or shape of reality. I want just the flash of its spirits. — Constantin Brancusi

I was born an ordinary actor. I will die an ordinary actor. But I've persisted. — Constantin Stanislavski

My voice comes from faraway, therefore it is faint and, also, because it is a woman's voice, it is trembling of the emotion imposed by your presence, as much as of the honour of being listen to. My voice comes from faraway, but it hopes when you will listen to it that it will resound in your hearts.
My voice comes from the midst of this nation, which having been placed on the threshold of Europe, will have loved and admired France and like France, and often through it, she would have strived for Freedom, vowed to have accomplished a splendid destiny and face bravely the changing mood of Fortune.

You may well recognise in these qualities Romania, land of suffering, land of enlightenment and of valour placed across the promontory against the dredge of Asian invasions and like a beacon being mightily conscious of defending the civilization, which gave it its people and its laws. - Paris, 27th April 1925; addressing the League of Nations (translated Constantin Roman — Elena Vacarescu

In talking about a genius, you would not say that he lies; he sees realities with different eyes from ours. — Constantin Stanislavski

The theatre infects the audience with its noble ecstasy. — Konstantin Stanislavski

choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. Constantin's — Sylvia Plath

Play well, or play badly, but play truly. — Constantin Stanislavski

The main difference between the art of the actor and all other arts is that every other [non-performing] artist may create whenever he is in the mood of inspiration. But the artist of the stage must be the master of his own inspiration, and must know how to call it forth at the hour announced on the posters of the theatre. This is the chief secret of our art. — Constantin Stanislavski

Fear your admirers! Learn in time to hear, understand, and love the cruel truth about yourselves! — Constantin Stanislavski

Why write [about my art]? Why not just show the photographs? — Constantin Brancusi

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, [ ... ] and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attilla and a pack of other lovers with queer names [ ... ] I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest ... — Sylvia Plath