Eleonora Duse

“My arms were always free, my heart was always my own.”

“To me, work is the most beautiful thing in the world. It is the only thing that never betrays you.”

“You cannot have a deep sympathy with a friend and a shallow friendship with yourself.”

“To save the Theatre, the Theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague... They are not artists, they are repeating machines.”

“Work is a great thing; it is the best thing I know of to make a man equal to a man.”

“The artist is the one who has the power to make the invisible visible.”

“I have passed my life in seeking knowledge, in mastering my art.”

“We should be masters of our fortunes, and not slaves.”

“The stage is not a place for petty feelings.”

“Art is a religion. Its aim is the elevation of the soul.”

“I have no technique. I have only a heart.”

“Let us create, let us work, for it is in these things that we find our true selves.”

“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.”

“Work is a great thing; men are fools to whine about it.”

“We must be ourselves, we must be natural.”

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

“The more I live, the more I see that the great thing is to be simple.”

“To save the Theatre, the Theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague... They are not artists, they are repeating machines.”

“I do not like the sound of my own voice. I have to make it sound like it is not me.”

“The one happiness is to shut one's door upon a little room, with a table before one, and to create; to create life in that isolation from life.”