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Without abnegation, no truth for the artist.  We should not preoccupy the audience with our own personality.  There is no true, simple or expressive singing without self-denial.  We must often leave people in ignorance of our own good qualities.

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To use expression at random on our own authority, expression at all hazards, is absurd.

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The mouth is a vital thermometer, the nose a moral thermometer.

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Dynamic wealth depends upon the number of articulations brought into play; the fewer articulations an actor uses, the more closely he approaches the puppet.

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A portion of a whole cannot be seriously appreciated by any one ignorant of the constitution of that whole.

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An abstract having been made of the modes of execution which the artist should learn before handling a subject, two things are first of all requisite: 

1.  To know what he is to seek in that subject itself;

2.  To know how to find what he seeks.

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Is not the essential principle of art the union of truth, beauty and good?  Are its action and aim anything but a tendency toward the realization of these three terms?

* * * * *

We have a right to ask a work of art by what methods it claims to move us, by which side of our character it intends to interest and convince us.

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Speech is external, and visible thought is the ambassadress of the intellect.

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How should the invisible be visible when the visible is so little so!

* * * * *

One cannot be too careful of his articulation.  The initial consonant should be articulated distinctly; the spirit of the word is contained in it.

* * * * *

Two things to be observed in the consonant:  its explosion and its preparation.  The t, d, p, etc., keep us waiting; the ch, v, j, prepare themselves, as:  “vvvenez.”  The vocals ne, me, re are muffled.

* * * * *

Rhythm is that which asserts; it is the form of movement.

Melody is that which distinguishes.

Harmony is that which conjoins.

* * * * *

Let your attitude, gesture and face foretell what you would make felt.

* * * * *

Be wary of the tremolo which many singers mistake for vibration.

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