Dame Ninette de Valois

• “First of all, the most important, that is to learn everything good that has survived from other times, and carefully to watch the bad - and throw it out.”

• “The smile is the dance of the face - the dance is the smile of the limbs.”

Rudolph Nureyev

• “What is art? It is not just nature, it is nurtured nature. It is intelligence applied to what physical ability you have.”

• “The only critic is a full house.”

Dame Margot Fonteyn

• “Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.”

• “The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.”

• “I think perhaps I've learned to be myself. I have a theory that all artists who would be important - painters and writers - must learn to be themselves. It takes a very long time.”

George Balanchine

• “Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for - for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.”

• “Music must be seen, and dance must be heard.”

Sylvie Guillem

• “When you are young, you can do anything, everything, and nothing at the same time. You don't have that kind of judgment; you just eat... like teenagers that need to feed. After a while, you know exactly what you are looking for, that sense of analysis comes to you when you start to use your brain.”

• “No one person can change the world, but one and one and one add up.”

Mikhail Baryshnikov

• “Be Good. To yourself, to other people, to everything you do. It's a norm of life by which people should try to live. Don't waste time. Be interesting and interested.”

• “I really reject that kind of comparison that says, Oh, he is the best. This is the second best. There is no such thing.”

Anna Pavlova

• “To follow, without halt, one aim: that's the secret of success.”

• “Somewhere in every one of us, no matter how deep it may be hidden, is a latent germ of beauty. ... We dance because this germ of beauty demands such expression, and the more we give it outlet the more we encourage our own instinct for graceful forms. It is by the steady elimination of everything which is ugly-thoughts and words no less than tangible objects-and by the substitution of things of true and lasting beauty that the whole progress of humanity proceeds.”

• “When I see you plodding along through the rain in dull, drab mackintoshes, with your noses tucked into your collars, I long to offer you a little advice. It is this: fight the weather with contrasts ... You must create an artificial sun to replace the one who has hidden himself. So why not a brighter note in your dress instead of the eternal grey, black, brown or navy?”

• “Rhythm is a fundamental fact of life, the key, indeed, to the universe.”

Sergei Diaghilev

• “Of all the wonders that the world had to offer, only art promised immortality.”

Isadora Duncan

• “The finest inheritance you can give to a child is to allow it to make its own way, completely on its own feet.”

• “Most human beings today waste some 25 to 30 years of their lives before they break through the actual and conventional lies which surround them.”

• “You were once wild here. Don't let them tame you.”

Vaslav Nijinsky

• “I have come to the conclusion that it is better to be silent than to speak.”

• “I am not crying, but have tears in my heart.”