The Theatre, Like The Fresco, Is Art

If There Is One Place On The Face Of The Earth Where All The Dreams Of Living Men Have Found A Home From The Very Earliest Days When Man Began The Dream Of Existence, It Is India. For More Than 30 Centuries, The Tree Of Vision, With All Its Thousand Branches And Their Millions Of Twigs, Has Sprung From This Torrid Land, The Burning Womb Of The Gods. It Renews Itself Tirelessly Showing No Signs Of Decay.

His (swami Vivekananda) Words Are Great Music, Phrases In The Style Of Beethoven, Stirring Rhythms Like The March Of Handel Choruses. I Cannot Touch These Sayings Of His, Scattered As They Are Through The Pages Of Books, At Thirty Years' Distance, Without Receiving A Thrill Through My Body Like An Electric Shock. And What Shocks, What Transports, Must Have Been Produced When In Burning Words They Issued From The Lips Of The Hero!

The Greatest Book Is Not The One Whose Message Engraves Itself On The Brain, As A Telegraphic Message Engraves Itself On The Ticker-tape, But The One Whose Vital Impact Opens Up Other Viewpoints, And From Writer To Reader Spreads The Fire That Is Fed By The Various Essences, Until It Becomes A Vast Conflagration Leaping From Forest To Forest.

If A Man Is To Shed The Light Of The Sun Upon Other Men, He Must First Of All Have It Within Himself.

Theatre Supposes Lives That Are Poor And Agitated, A People Searching In Dreams For A Refuge From Thought. If We Were Happier And Freer We Should Not Feel Hungry For Theatre. A People That Is Happy And Free Has Need Of Festivities More Than Of Theatres; It Will Always See In Itself The Finest Spectacle.