Persuade yourself that there are blind men and deaf men in your audience whom you must move, interest and persuade! Your inflection must become pantomime to the blind, and your pantomime, inflection to the deaf.

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The mouth plays a part in everything evil which we would express, by a grimace which consists of protruding the lips and lowering the corners.  If the grimace translates a concentric sentiment, it should be made by compressing the lips.

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Conscious menace—­that of a master to his subordinate—­is expressed by a movement of the head carried from above downward.

Impotent menace requires the head to be moved from below upward.

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Any interrogation made with crossed arms must partake of the character of a threat.

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When two limbs follow the same direction, they cannot be simultaneous without an injury to the law of opposition.  Therefore, direct movements should be successive, and opposite movements should be simultaneous.

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There are three great articular centres:  the shoulder, elbow and wrist.  Passional expression passes from the shoulder, where it is in the emotional state, to the elbow, where it is presented in the affectional state; then to the wrist and the thumb, where it is presented in the susceptive and volitional state.

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Three centres in the arm:  the shoulder for pathetic actions; the elbow, which approaches the body by reason of humility, and reciprocally (that is, inversely) for pride; lastly, the hand for fine, spiritual and delicate actions.

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The initial forms of movements should be—­in virtue of the zones whence they proceed—­the only explicit, and consequently the only truly expressive ones.

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Bad actors exert themselves in vain to be moved and to afford a spectacle to themselves.  On the other hand, true artists never let their gestures reveal more than a tenth part of the secret emotion that they apparently feel and would hide from the audience to spare their sensibility.  Thus they succeed in stirring all spectators.

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No, art is not an imitation of nature:  art is better than nature.  It is nature illuminated.

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There are two kinds of loud voices:  the vocally loud, which is the vulgar voice; and the dynamically loud, which is the powerful voice.  A voice, however powerful it may be, should be inferior to the power which animates it.

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Every object of agreeable or disagreeable aspect which surprises us, makes the body recoil.  The degree of reaction should be proportionate to the degree of emotion caused by the sight of the object.