Velicu Constantin Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

What is important to me is not the truth outside myself, but the truth within myself. ~ 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

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

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

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

Architecture is inhabited sculpture. ~ 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

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

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

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

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

Simplicity is complexity resolved ~ Constantin Brancusi

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

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

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

Nothing can grow under big trees. ~ Constantin Brancusi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art. ~ 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

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

There hasn't been any art yet. Art is just beginning. ~ 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

It's not regret for staying. It is nostalgia for something that we believe is true in our illusion, something we will never have. And if we touched it, we would soon realize that it was not what we dreamed of. ~ Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu

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

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

How did I discover saccharin? Well, it was partly by accident and partly by study. I had worked a long time on the compound radicals and substitution products of coal tar... One evening I was so interested in my laboratory that I forgot about my supper till quite late, and then rushed off for a meal without stopping to wash my hands. I sat down, broke a piece of bread, and put it to my lips. It tasted unspeakably sweet. I did not ask why it was so, probably because I thought it was some cake or sweetmeat. I rinsed my mouth with water, and dried my moustache with my napkin, when, to my surprise the napkin tasted sweeter than the bread. Then I was puzzled. I again raised my goblet, and, as fortune would have it, applied my mouth where my fingers had touched it before. The water seemed syrup. It flashed on me that I was the cause of the singular universal sweetness, and I accordingly tasted the end of my thumb, and found it surpassed any confectionery I had ever eaten. I saw the whole thing at once. I had discovered some coal tar substance which out-sugared sugar. I dropped my dinner, and ran back to the laboratory. There, in my excitement, I tasted the contents of every beaker and evaporating dish on the table. ~ Constantin Fahlberg

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

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

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

Work like a slave; command like a king; create like a god. ~ 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

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

Make the difficult habitual, the habitual easy, and the easy beautiful. ~ Constantin S. Stanislavski