“In the colonies, an actress is considered something lower than a prostitute, and only slightly higher than a pig.”

“Higher than the beasts, lower than the angels, stuck in our idiot Eden.”

“There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.”

“I can't believe that our body, composed as it is of mud and shit and equipped with instincts lower than those of the pig or the crab-louse, contains anything pure and immaterial”

“What I have to tell you is this: I am resolved that dancing is to be my path. I know that to be a dancer is to be considered in our world little more than a prostitute. But you cannot imagine what is happening here in Berlin. It is different back home, but in Europe dance is being reborn as something more than cheap entertainment by loose women.”

“A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.”