Inspiring Ballet Quotes to Ignite Your Passion for Dance

"Never give up. Don’t let good ideas be buried with you. Breathe it. Dream it. Live it and relentlessly pursue your ideas and ideals. Without them you cannot achieve anything meaningful in life."

- Li Cunxin

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the things you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream."

- H. Jackson Brown

"The future belongs to those who believe in their dreams."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Perseverance has always just been something that was in me. And it was a tool that came in very handy as a ballerina."

- Misty Copeland

"To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking."

- Agnes de Mille

"I have lived so long because in those moments when I am dancing, I am beyond time and space."

- Ruth St. Denis

"Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion."

- Martha Graham

"You dance love, and you dance joy, and you dance dreams."

- Gene Kelly

"Technique–bodily control–must be mastered only because the body must not stand in the way of the soul’s expression. The only reason for mastering technique is to make sure the body does not prevent the soul from expressing itself."

- La Meri

"Dance is the hidden language of the soul."

- Martha Graham

"Learning to walk sets you free. Learning to dance gives you the greatest freedom of all: to express with your whole self the person you are."

- Melissa Hayden

"The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul. The true dance is an expression of serenity; it is controlled by the profound rhythm of inner emotion."

- Isadora Duncan

"Dance is your pulse, your heartbeat, your breathing. It’s the rhythm of your life. It’s the expression in time and movement, in happiness, joy, sadness and envy."

- Jacques d’Amboise

"You can start late, look different, be uncertain, and still succeed."

- Misty Copeland

"Every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and dance."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for – for another time? There are not other timers. There is only now."

- George Balanchine

"One is born to be a dancer. No teacher can work miracles, nor will years of training make a good dancer of an untalented pupil. One may be able to acquire a certain technical facility, but no one can ever ‘acquire an exceptional talent.’"

- George Balanchine

"Ballet is not just movement, not simply abstract. It’s something beautiful. Sometimes there’s this feeling in the movement that makes me want to cry."

- Nina Ananiashvili

"Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion."

- Martha Graham

"Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts. For it is no mere translation or abstraction of life. It is life itself."

- Henry Havelock Ellis

"We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance."

- Japanese Proverb

"Success comes from having a fulfilling experience and being inside the moment of that experience."

- Tommy Tune

"There are short-cuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them."

- Vicki Baum

"I learned at a very young age how to pick up steps. This gave me a great advantage later on. I could learn choreography very quickly."

- Liza Minnelli

"Love is the key to success. You can call it different things, and get technical about it, but that’s what it comes down to. Love is the most powerful source from which all creativity grows."

- Tommy Tune

"I praise the dance, for it frees people from the heaviness of matter and binds the isolated to community."

- Saint Augustine

"When we give ourselves over completely to the spirit of the dance, it becomes a prayer."

- Gabrielle Roth

"Then come the lights shining on you from above. You are a performer. You forget all you learned, the process of technique, the fear, the pain, you even forget who you are you become one with the music, the lights, indeed one with the dance."

- Shirley Maclaine

"Without dance I cannot feel my soul, hear my heart, or see my dreams."

- Nahara

"Dance is communication, and so the great challenge is to speak clearly, beautifully, and with inevitability. Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made. Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!"

- Constanze

"When you are dancing with your partner, for that two and a half minutes, you are in love with each other. You’re corresponding with each other by the moves that you make. It’s a love affair, between you and your partner and the music."

- Frankie Manning

"To dance, put your hand on your heart and listen to the sound of your soul."

- Luigi

"If you dance with your heart your body will follow."

- Mia Michaels

"Great artists are people who find ways to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike."

- Margot Fonteyn

"Dance every performance as if it were your last."

- Erik Bruhn

"Learning to walk sets you free. Learning to dance gives you the greatest freedom of all: to express your whole self, the person you are."

- Melissa Hayden

"Dance is the loftiest, most moving, most beautiful of the arts, because it is not a mere translation or abstraction of life; it is life itself!"

- Martha Graham

"Ballet is a dance executed by the human soul."

- Alexander Pushkin

"Ballet was this thing that just felt so innate in me, like I was meant to be doing this."

- Misty Copeland

"When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way."

- Wayne Dyer

"I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself."

- Arianna Huffington

"One can be a great artist without being a great technician. There have been many famous ballet stars who did not have the ideal body or total mastery of all aspects of the art form, but on the stage they possessed magnetism—true artistry, by which I mean a charismatic quality."

- Fernando Bujones

"There comes a moment in a young artist’s life when he know she has to bring something to the stage from within himself. He has to put in something in order to be able to take something."

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

"Dance is something that you do—not something you talk about. It’s abstract and emotional. Art comes from a private, hidden, never fully understood place. You lose yourself in it. You become one with the music; it’s godlike; it’s spiritual. To talk about it is to trespass in a restricted zone."

- Donna McKenzie

"The really great dancer is perhaps a rarer phenomenon than great musicians, painters or sculptors. This is because dance is a consummation of all these arts. The dancer, in addition to the qualities that pure dance demands, must be sensitive to and have an uncanny ear for music, must have a painter’s sensibility to the significant line, a sculptor’s approach to form, an architect’s vision of space and a trained actor’s responses to dramatic situations."

- K. Subhas Chandran

"Dance is music made visible."

- George Balanchine

"There are two basic elements to classical ballet. They are quality and quantity. Quantity is how much a dancer can physically do…the element that gives an artist the freedom to concentrate on quality, while quality is how he or she does it…quality of movement…the most difficult phase… requires long and arduous training."

- Igor Schwezoff

"To dance is to reach for a word that doesn’t exist, To sing the heartsong of a thousand generations, To feel the meaning of a moment in time."

- Beth Jones

"To touch, to move, to inspire. This is the true gift of dance."

- Aubrey Lynch

"The journey between who you once were, and who you are now becoming, is where the dance of life really takes place."

- Barbara De Angelis

"If one had to define one essential gift with which a dancer needs to be endowed, there might be a rush of answers. A beautiful body, grace of line, graciousness of spirit, joy in the work, ability to please, unswerving integrity, relentless ambition towards some abstract perfection. Certainly all these factors determine a dancer’s character, and every element exists in some combination within the performing artist’s presence."

- Lincoln Kirstein

"Dancing should look easy; like an optical illusion. It should seem effortless. When you do a difficult variation, the audience is aware that it is demanding and that you have the power and strength to do it. But in the end, when you take your bow, you should look as if you were saying, ‘Oh, it was nothing. I could do it again.’"

- Bruce Marks

"When the music and dance create with accord…their magic captivates both the heart and the mind."

- Jean Georges Noverre

"Dance from your heart and love your music, and the audience will love you in return."

- Maria Tallchief

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined."

- Henry David Thoreau

"It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly."

- Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love, after the Bhagavad Gita

"To be who you are and become what you are capable of is the only goal worth living."

- Alvin Ailey

"We are never more truly and profoundly human than when we dance."

- José Limón

"Dancers aren’t made of their technique, but their passion."

- Agnes de Mille

"Dancers are made, not born."

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

"Every time I dance, I’m trying to prove myself to myself."

- Misty Copeland

"When I dance, I escape the present and become one with my soul."

- Normani Kordei

"Where there is no heart there is no art."

- Anna Pavlova

"When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you."

- Paulo Coelho

"The most essential thing in dance discipline is devotion."

- Merce Cunningham

"Dance is the movement of the universe concentrated in an individual."

- Isadora Duncan

"To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful."

- Agnes De Mille

"I see dance being used as communication between body and soul, to express what it too deep to find for words."

- Ruth St. Denis

"You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive."

- Merce Cunningham

"The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. Bodies never lie."

- Agnes de Mille

"Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for — liberation."

- Martha Graham

"To tend, unfailingly, unflinchingly, towards a goal, is the secret of success."

- Anna Pavlova

"Success depends in a very large measure upon individual initiative and exertion, and cannot be achieved except by a dint of hard work."

- Anna Pavlova

"When I dance, I forget everything else and just feel completely happy."

- Katherine Jenkins

"I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be."

- Martha Graham

"One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation."

- Arthur Ashe

"If anything at all, perfection is not when there is nothing to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

- Maria Tallchief

"Style is an afterthought, not something that is preconceived. If I’m digging for diamonds in a mine, the maze that I’ve dug, which might look interesting, is just an aftereffect of all the digging, nothing more. The Buddhists say, “Look.” But we get hung up staring at the finger instead of where it’s pointing."

- Alonzo King

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"I think of dance as a constant transformation of life itself."

- Merce Cunningham

"Young dancers are training at a very vulnerable time in their lives… So train the whole person, not just the dancer."

- Deborah Bull

"You dance because you have to. Dance is an essential part of life that has always been with me."

- Katherine Dunham

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will."

- Vince Lombardi

"The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure."

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

"The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie."

- Agnes de Mille

"Dream as if you’ll live forever, Live as if you’ll die today."

- James Dean

"When you take dancing lessons, you learn steps and you learn steps and you learn steps. It can go on for a long time. And then one day, you just learn to dance, and it is so different."

- Bill Austin

"Ballet is only good when it is great."

- Arlene Croce

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit."

- Aristotle

"Dance for yourself. If someone understands, good. If not, no matter."

- Louis Horst

"If anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away."

- Maria Tallchief

"Dance is for everybody. I believe that the dance came from the people and that it should always be delivered back to the people."

- Alvin Ailey

"Dance like nobody’s looking."

- Mark Twain

"Don’t be afraid to be amazing."

- Andy Offutt Irwin

"Dancing is like breathing–missing a day doing either is very bad."

- Vera Ellen

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."

- C.S. Lewis

"Dance constitutes a true recapturing of… freedom and childish play."

- Agnes de Mille

"It takes ten years, usually, to make a dancer. It takes ten years of handling the instrument, handling the material with which you are dealing, for you to know it completely."

- Martha Graham

"I may not be there yet, but I am closer than I was yesterday."

- Misty Copeland

"Keep proving them wrong."

- Michaela DePrince

"I see dance being used as communication between body and soul, to express what is too deep to find for words."

- Ruth St. Denis

"The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing."

- Doris Humphrey

"No one can arrive from being talented alone, work transforms talent into genius."

- Anna Pavlova

"Practice like you've never won. Perform like you've never lost."

- Bernard F. Asuncion

"You make mistakes. Mistakes don't make you."

- Maxwell Maltz

"This search for what you want is like tracking something that doesn’t want to be tracked. It takes time to get a dance right, to create something memorable."

- Fred Astaire

"Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art."

- Margot Fonteyn

"Dance is so important in the world. It needs no language. Our bodies speak a language of its own."

- Ibrahim Farrah

"What’s so wonderful about ballet is that it’s mind-driven physicality. It’s almost a Greek ideal of body, mind, and form."

- Edward Villella

"Our classes are our practices. Our dance sneakers are our equipment. Our teacher is our coach. Our dance clothes are our jerseys. Our performances are our matches. Our audiences are our fans. Our concert is our tournament. The rhythm is our rule. Failure is our opponent; we will not lose. This is our game. This is our sport."

- Vala Yankovski

"The heart of the dance is the heart of the dancer."

- Ghazallah al-Badriyyah

"In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down."

- Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love

"Ballet dancing is arduous, strenuous activity. Students are engaged in physical training that rivals the training Olympic athletes undergo."

- George Balanchine

"The dance is the mother of the arts. Music and poetry exist in time; painting and architecture in space. But the dance lives at once in time and space."

- Curt Sachs

"Dance for yourself. If someone understands, good. If not, then no matter. Go right on doing what you love."

- Lois Hurst

"Dance isn’t something that can be explained in words. It has to be danced."

- Paige Arden

"Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery."

- Martha Graham

"Having limits to push against is how you find out what you can do."

- Sylvie Guillem

"The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have."

- Norman Vincent Peale

"The purpose of art is higher than art. What we are really interested in are masterpieces of humanity."

- Alonzo King

"Talents are best nurtured in solitude, but character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Why are we inspired by another person’s courage? Maybe because it gives us the sweet and genuine surprise of discovering some trace, at least, of the same courage in ourselves."

- Laurence Shames

"Dancing is surely the most basic and relevant of all forms of expression. Nothing else can so effectively give outward form to an inner experience."

- Lyall Watson

"Technical perfection is insufficient. It is an orphan without the true soul of the dancer."

- Sylvie Guillem

"Ballet technique is arbitrary and very difficult. It never becomes easy—it becomes possible."

- Agnes de Mille

"People come to see beauty, and I dance to give it to them."

- Judith Jamison

"Dance for me a minute, and I’ll tell you who you are."

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

"So many dancers leave me untouched, unmoved. A dancer should be able to raise an arm and make someone cry, in the way Isadora Duncan did. It is a necessity for any art to move you."

- Pauline Koner

"To learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same."

- Martha Graham

"Someone need not be perfect to be a great dancer – feeling a soul is more important than what the body can do."

- Marcia Haydée

"If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge."

- Twyla Tharp

"Hold your hands out gently. Ask others to do the same. See how different each person looks. Each person has their own unique and natural beauty. Use this natural beauty when you dance. Respect your individuality."

- Artemis Mourat

"I loved to dance because I was scared to speak. When I was moving, I could feel."

- Pina Bausch

"To change the world, you must first change yourself. And baby, that’s hard enough."

- Alonzo King

"The most essential thing in dance discipline is devotion, the steadfast and willing devotion to the labor that makes the class work not a gymnastic hour and a half, or at the lowest level, a daily drudgery, but a devotion that allows the classroom discipline to become moments of dancing too."

- Merce Cunningham

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."

- Paulo Coelho

"I just know that when I go on stage, I give everything I have, not only my legs, not only my feet, not only my body. I try to tell a story. Sometimes I’m able to cry because I feel like it. Sometimes I’m able to love because I feel like it."

- Sylvie Gulliem

"Every teacher will tell you that you cannot dance classical technique with perfection, there is no such thing, there is no way. So you have to adapt the technique to your abilities or to your deficiencies. Learn to cheat!"

- Yamini Krishnamurthy

"For me, purity of movement wasn’t enough. I needed expression, more intensity, more mind."

- Rudolf Nureyev

"There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them."

- Vicki Baum

"Technique–bodily control–must be mastered only because the body must not stand in the way of the soul’s expression."

- La Meri

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."

- Robert Collier

"It is not the movements that make a dance beautiful, it is the emotions that inspired the movement that make it beautiful."

- Kristy Nilsson

"Dancers are both athletes and artists."

- Margot Fonteyn

"I have performed for thousands when they found me exotic, the vogue, daring, but I have danced, at any given time, for about ten people…. They were the ones that left the theater forever different from the way they were when they came in. All of my long, long life, I have danced for those ten."

- Ruth St. Denis

"Dancing allows me to explore myself in so many ways, to learn about my limitations and strengths, my ability to cope with adversity and to go farther than I thought I could. You find out what you’re made of."

- Andrew Asnes

"Master technique and then forget about it and be natural."

- Anna Pavlova

"Dance has to unfold with the grace of a tree giving out leaves, flowers and then tiny fruit. Nothing so beautiful can be done in haste."

- Pt. Birju Maharaj

"I would like to tell all dancers to forget themselves and the desire for self-display. They must become completely absorbed in the dance."

- Anthony Tudor

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"It is not so much upon the number of exercises, as the care with which they are done, that progress and skill depend."

- August Bournonville

"Dancing is a very living art. It is essentially of the moment, although a very old art. A dancer’s art is lived while he is dancing. Nothing is left of his art except the pictures and the memories–when his dancing days are over."

- Martha Graham

"The world loves a clone and a good knock-off. It cheats the artist… In the obsession for technical wizardry, people disappear; and if your voice isn’t present in a relationship, you don’t matter."

- Alonzo King

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."

- Edgar Degas

"The artistic path is a fearless occupation."

- Alonzo King

"Talk about dance? Dance is not something to talk about. Dance is to dance."

- Peter Saint James

"Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to paradise of the achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration, there are daily small deaths."

- Martha Graham

"It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly."

- Isaac Asimov

"Who aims at excellence will be above mediocrity; who aims at mediocrity will be far short of it."

- Burmese Saying

"I’m trying to make the perfect dance, that’s what drives me."

- Trisha Brown

"The physical language of the body is so much more powerful than words."

- Bill Irwin

"Nothing so clearly and inevitably reveals the inner man than movement and gesture. It is quite possible, if one chooses, to conceal and dissimulate behind words or paintings or statues or other forms of human expression, but the moment you move you stand revealed, for good or ill, for what you are."

- Doris Humphrey

"Every morning I am a beginner."

- Hanya Holm

"So many dancers rely on some sort of magic happening on the stage. They never, for various reasons, work full out in rehearsal. That’s very uncreative. They don’t discover the kinds of things that add up to a remarkable performance."

- Benjamin Harkarvy

"Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order."

- Samuel Beckett

"The choreographic process is exhausting. It happens on one’s feet after hours of work, and the energy required is roughly the equivalent of writing a novel and winning a tennis match simultaneously."

- Agnes de Mille

"The significance of a man is not in what he attains but in what he longs to attain."

- Kahlil Gibran

"You get more negative reactions than positive reactions as you go through life, and the big lesson is nobody counts you out but yourself…I never have; I never will."

- Buddy Ebsen

"First comes the sweat. Then comes the beauty if you’re very lucky and have said your prayers."

- George Balanchine

"Dancing is silent poetry."

- Simonides

"Dance form is logical, but it is all in the realm of feeling, sensitivity and imagination."

- Doris Humphrey

"There is only one success–to be able to spend your life in your own way."

- Christopher Morley

"They can because they think they can."

- Virgil

"It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you don’t stop."

- Confucius

"It isn’t hard to be good from time to time….What’s hard is being good every day."

- Willie Mays

"The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible."

- Arthur C. Clarke

"The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it’s considered to be your style."

- Fred Astaire

"Every dance you make belongs to you. It is part of your collection. When you think of it like that, you’ll want to make your next routine the best you’ve ever made!"

- Torron-Lee Dewar

"Never be afraid to be a poppy in a field of daffodils."

- Michaela Deprince

"Who am I?, the artist asks. And he devotes his whole life to finding out."

- Agnes de Mille

"Dancing is creating a sculpture that is visible only for a moment."

- Erol Ozan

"The dance is strong magic. The body can fly without wings. It can sing without voice."

- Pearl Primus

"The problem is not making up the steps but deciding which ones to keep."

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

"Dancing can reveal all the mystery that music conceals."

- Charles Baudelaire

"I consider myself an actress first, a dancer second, and a singer third. Why? Because the dancer needs a reason to move—that’s the actor informing the dancer. So I worked on my acting and gradually developed a singing voice."

- Liza Minnelli

"Inspiration comes when you let go."

- Yuan Yuan Tan

"God respects us when we work, but he loves us when we dance."

- Les Blanc

"Love is a lot like dancing; you just surrender to the music."

- Pierce Brosnan

"It’s not magic! It’s physics. The speed of the turn is what keeps you upright."

- Deborah Bull

"Our profession creates illusions. It is not a matter of having a perfect body, but of dancing in such a way as to look perfect."

- Wilheim Burmann

"It is through strength of technique that the body stays in possession of music."

- Arlene Croce

"When you are on stage you don’t see faces. The lights are in your eyes and you see just this black void out in front of you. And yet you know there is life out there, and you have to get your message across."

- Suzanne Farrell

"Daily dance uplifts the soul to spiritual realms."

- Lailah Gifty Akita

"Dancers are instruments, like a piano the choreographer plays."

- George Balanchine

"Dancers work and live from the inside. They drive themselves constantly producing a glow that lights not only themselves but audience after audience."

- M. Louis

"Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Ballet class is like Life Lessons 101. You learn some of life’s most important lessons here that you will carry with you forever."

- Joanne H. Morscher

"Dance is an art in space and time. The object of the dancer is to obliterate that."

- Merce Cunningham

"Great creativity begins with tolerance."

- Yo-Yo Ma

"Dancing has always been a passion for me, one that I will probably never be rid of."

- Darcey Bussell

"You don’t just become a success overnight."

- Darcey Bussell

"The trained dancer must not only have grace and elegance, but also the leap of an Olympic hurdler, the balance of a tight-rope walker and panther-like strength and agility."

- Camilla Jessel

"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."

- Carlos Castaneda

"The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you you’re not good enough. On occasion, some may be correct. But do not do their work for them. Seek any job; ask anyone out; pursue any goal. Don’t take it personally when they say ‘no’ – they may not be smart enough to say ‘yes.’"

- Keith Olbermann

"Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men."

- Martha Graham

"To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gifts – absolute gifts – which have not been acquired by one’s own effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul… The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies."

- Kate Chopin, The Awakening

"Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can."

- Martha Graham

"The deep art… That’s the part that has to be guarded like a miser would his money… Like a dope addict would his dope… Like a lover with their love."

- Alonzo King

"You are unique, and if that is not fulfilled, then something has been lost."

- Martha Graham

"You see, when weaving a blanket, an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out."

- Martha Graham

"Dance is the timeless interpretation of life."

- Shah Asad Rizvi

"The dance, more than any other art, lives through the genius of its interpreters."

- Lillian Moore

"Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor."

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

"Dance, in its broadest sense, is a physical acknowledgment of the rhythm of the universe and of our own lives."

- Carol Roan

"The expression should come from within oneself, conveying the spiritual –something between earth and heaven. And if one runs, one should not seem to touch the ground."

- Natalya Makarova

"I use dancing to embellish, extend or enlarge upon an existing emotion."

- Gower Champion

"Musicality is when the dancers’ movements appear to create the music – and not the other way around."

- Kristy Nilsson

"If I had listened to the critics I’d have died drunk in the gutter."

- Chekov

"The teacher doesn’t teach, not really. The teacher offers stimulation and ways in which the person can educate himself or herself. At best the teacher wakes up that person and makes a person hungry."

- Murray Louis

"Dancing is poetry with arms and legs."

- Charles Baudelaire

"So many dancers feel that what they look like is more important than who they are. This is a real danger for dancers who focus for years on appearances and think of themselves as merely a body."

- Alonzo King

"The dance, just as the performance of the actor, is kinesthetic art, art of the muscle sense."

- Rudolf Arnheim

"Do it big, do it right, and do it with style."

- Fred Astaire

"If the dance is right, there shouldn’t be a single superfluous movement."

- Fred Astaire

"Ballet is important and significant – yes. But first of all, it is a pleasure."

- George Balanchine

"It’s like the time capsule with everything in it. Or like the seed that when you plant it, becomes the enormous tree with leaves and fruit."

- George Balanchine

"Be guided. Face what you don’t know and allow those who do to help you reach your full artistic potential."

- Edward Villella

"The dancer, or dancers, must transform the stage for the audience as well as for themselves into an autonomous, complete, virtual realm, and all motions into a play of visible forces in unbroken, virtual time… Both space and time, as perceptible factors, disappear almost entirely in the dance illusion."

- Ji?í Kylián

"No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business."

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

"There is something so rewarding about dancing. It’s almost spiritual – you let loose, you feel free, you get endorphins from the exercise."

- Julianne Hough

"Even when she walks one would believe that she dances."

- Charles Baudelaire

"If people stand in a circle long enough, they’ll eventually begin to dance."

- George Carlin

"There are those who dance to the rhythm that is played to them, those who only dance to their own rhythm, and those who don’t dance at all."

- José Bergamín

"I learned to act by watching Martha Graham dance, and I learned to dance by watching Charlie Chaplin act."

- Louise Brooks

"So if the dance is five minutes long, make yourself run for perhaps eight minutes. That way, you over-train and the dance will seem easier…"

- Deborah Bull

"In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves."

- Edward Bulwer-Lytton

"Plie is the first thing you learn and the last thing you master."

- Suzanne Farrell

"Fantasy is a reality you can dance to."

- Richard Cohen

"Technique is what you fall back on when you run out of inspiration."

- Rudolf Nureyev

"You’re never more of an individual than when you’re a happy team player."

- Suzanne Farrell

"That which cannot be spoken can be sung; that which cannot be sung can be danced."

- French proverb

"There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good."

- Edwin Denby

"You have to think big to be big."

- Claude M. Bristol

"Dancing faces you towards Heaven, whichever direction you turn."

- Sweetpea Tyler

"Try to be fearless, because fear can inhibit you and keep you from a life."

- Miranda Weese

"Football isn’t a contact sport; it’s a collision sport. Dancing is a contact sport."

- Vince Lombardi

"To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak."

- Hopi Indian Saying

"Those move easiest who have learned to dance."

- Alexander Pope

"Many of the simplest exercises become harder in the center."

- Camilla Jessel

"Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience."

- Victoria Holt

"A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?"

- Robert Browning

"Ferocity doesn’t care what it looks like."

- Maurya Kerr

"Be IN it. Get drunk in the moment."

- Alonzo King

"Tricks well-mastered are called techniques. Techniques half learned are merely tricks."

- Ralf Dean Omar

"Expect the best and you seldom get less."

- Mellissa Taylor

"There’s nothing wrong with fear; the only mistake is to let it stop you in your tracks."

- Twyla Tharp

"Don’t wait. The time will never be just right."

- Napoleon Hill

"Fairy Tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

- G.K. Chesterton

"If you want the rainbow, you’ve got to put up with the rain."

- Dolly Parton

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."

- Robert Brault

"Dance is certainly a sport, and they are phenomenal athletes, and they’re also artists."

- Neve Campbell

"Any kind of dancing is better than no dancing at all."

- Lynda Barr

"Dance is a great way to express yourself."

- Darcey Bussell

"Your fragility is also your strength."

- Pina Bausch

"A toe shoe is as eccentric as the ballerina who wears it: their marriage is a commitment."

- Toni Bentley

"A good dancer is an educated one, so don’t abandon school."

- Deborah Bull

"Dance helps us dream bigger dreams and understand our connectedness. When we close our eyes and dream, we are all brothers."

- Russell Clark

"Long experience has taught me that the crux of my fortunes is whether I can radiate good will toward my audience. There is only one way to do it and that is to feel it."

- Howard Thurston

"Dancing: The highest intelligence in the freest body."

- Isadora Duncan

"There are likewise three kinds of dancers: first, those who consider dancing as a sort of gymnastic drill, made up of impersonal and graceful arabesques; second, those who, by concentrating their minds, lead the body into the rhythm of a desired emotion, expressing a remembered feeling or experience. And finally, there are those who convert the body into a luminous fluidity, surrendering it to the inspiration of the soul."

- Isadora Duncan

"There are three steps you have to complete to become a professional dancer: learn to dance, learn to perform, and learn how to cope with injuries."

- D. Gere

"Bravura has nothing to do with technique. It’s all about timing and oozing life."

- Kevin McKenzie

"If their feet aren’t in the right place, at least their hearts are."

- Christian M. Chensvold

"Ballet is the one form of theater where nobody speaks a foolish word all evening, nobody on the stage at least."

- Edwin Denby

"One can go a long way after one is tired."

- French proverb

"Dancing’s just a conversation between two people. Talk to me."

- Steven Rogers

"Movement without meaning is just exercise."

- Marie Brooks

"In life, as in dance, grace glides on blistered feet."

- Alice Abrams

"People tend to look at dancers like we are these little jewels, little cardboard cut-outs, and yet we have blood and guts and go through Hell."

- Susan Jaffe

"In couple dances, gentlemen, hold onto her like you like her."

- Richard Duree

"Why be normal? What’s the point?"

- Richard Saunders

"Most people think of ballet as children in little tutus. They don’t know it is sweat, blood and tears as well!"

- Nan Keating

"You can’t see a painter or a writer or a musician if you just look at them, but you can see a dancer in a child if they’ve studied ballet for a year."

- The Dancer and the Dance

"In eroticism as dance: one of the partners is always charged with leading the other."

- Milan Kundera

"Goals are dreams with deadlines."

- Diana Scharf Hunt

"You don’t have to know about ballet to enjoy it, all you have to do is look at it."

- Edwin Denby

"If you don’t have a plan for yourself, you’ll be part of someone else’s."

- American Proverb

"Attack life, it’s going to kill you anyway."

- Steven Coallier

"Endurance is patience concentrated."

- Thomas Carlyle

"It takes an athlete to dance, but an artist to be a dancer."

- Shanna LaFleur

"Classical dancing is like being a mother: if you’ve never done it, you can’t imagine how hard it is."

- Harriet Cavalli

"If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it."

- Isadora Duncan

"Dance has become an exclusionary enterprise. To participate, one must be thinner than thin, of pleasing form, flexible, athletic and young. If you are not all these things, you will be allowed to dance in the privacy of your own living room. You just wouldn’t dare to put yourself onstage."

- Clive Barnes

"Technique is what you need to do to dance well, principally to make it feel good to your partner. Style is everything else you do when you dance, hopefully to make it look good to your partner, and your audience."

- David Barker

"The choreographer and the dancer must remember that they reach the audience through the eye."

- George Balanchine

"Put a man and a girl on stage and there is already a story; a man and two girls, there’s already a plot."

- George Balanchine

"Dancers are the athletes of God."

- Albert Einstein

"I could never make a ballet by wrinkling my brow and concentrating. If you set out deliberately to make a masterpiece, how will you ever get it finished."

- George Balanchine

"Choreography is simpler than you think. Just go and do, and don’t think so much about it. Just make something interesting."

- George Balanchine

"If you want to release your aggression, get up and dance."

- Chuck Berry

"When one lifts a ballerina, it is not her weight but her nature that causes the problem."

- Maris Liepa

"A pas de deux is a dialogue of love. How can there be conversation if one partner is dumb?"

- Rudolf Nureyev

"Some people seem to think that good dancers are born, but all the good dancers I have known are taught or trained."

- Fred Astaire

"It’s true of all great artists that the more you see, the more you want to see."

- Peter Anastos

"No artist is ahead of his time. He is time; the others are just behind the times."

- Martha Graham

"The mother of the dance is the melody because she gives you everything, tells you everything you need to know, like a mother. The father of the dance is the rhythm and he is the strong one, the leader, the authority ? as a father should be!"

- Tayyar Akdeniz

"Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."

- Scott Adams

"To sing well and to dance is to be well educated."

- Plato

"The fear is worse than the pain."

- Shannon Bahr

"Dance is like wine it matures with every performance."

- Alarmel Valli

"Everyday there must be something I can’t do, otherwise it’s boring."

- Maret Robier

"O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?"

- William Butler Yeats

"Great art is never perfect; perfect art is never great."

- Edward Abbey

"Poetry is like dancing. Not all of us can be ballet dancers, but all of us dance. Everyone has a poet inside of him struggling to get out."

- Marks and Spencer

"Only angels and ballerinas dance on their toes."

- David Ira Rottenberg

"Everything is beautiful at the ballet."

- A Chorus Line

"Never excuse yourself."

- Henry Ward Beecher

"All I ever needed was the music and the mirror."

- A Chorus Line

"A mistake is simply another way of doing things."

- Katherine Graham

"Bleeding feet will bond us."

- Liza Minelli

"Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about dancing in the rain!"

- Anonymous

"He who cannot dance puts the blame on the floor."

- Hindu proverb

"Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he’ll escape."

- W. H. Auden

"You haven’t got anything to dance about until you’re over thirty-five anyway."

- Bert Balladine

"Dancing is like life: it’s good to have a plan, but be prepared to improvise."

- Anonymous

"My muse must come to me on union time."

- George Balanchine

"Most ballet teachers in the United States are terrible. If they were in medicine, everyone would be poisoned."

- George Balanchine

"God creates, I do not create. I assemble and I steal everywhere to do it-from what I see, from what the dancers do, from what others do…."

- George Balanchine

"Behind each victory is a long train of suffering!"

- Anonymous

"You can’t expect the audience to give you its attention. You have to grab it."

- Anonymous

"Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music."

- Angela Monet

"Dancing is a sweat job."

- Fred Astaire

"Quitters never win and winners never quit."

- Anonymous

"Even the ears must dance."

- Natalya Makarova

"Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you."

- Anonymous

"Those who try never regret."

- David Ira Rottenberg

"Toe dancing is a dandy attention getter, second only to screaming."

- Agnes de Mille

"You know you’re dancing when tears of pain and happiness blend in with your sweat."

- Anonymous

"Dancers have a very hard job. We must take our ugly, callused, blistered, and bruised feet and present them in a way so that they are mistaken as the most beautiful things on Earth."

- Anonymous

"Those who believe they can and those who believe they can’t are both right."

- Anonymous

"Dancing is an amazing activity. You can go up to a gorgeous woman that you’ve never met before, spend three minutes touching her virtually anywhere on her body, and she thanks you for it afterwards!"

- Mario Robau, Jr

"Dancing is an art because it is subject to rules."

- Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire

"You either do the pirouette or you shoot yourself – one way or the other something must happen!"

- Anonymous

"He who dances without leading is merely making the girl mad."

- Anonymous

"Dance is a delicate balance between perfection and beauty."

- Anonymous

"They who love dancing too much seem to have more brains in their feet than in their head."

- Anonymous

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall."

"We dancers are very lonely people. We work together but we are very much self-made, self-centered individuals."

"Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to be over, it’s about learning how to dance in the rain."

"Dance to express, not to impress."

"Dancers offer us our only earthly chance to catch a glimpse of the angelic host."

"There are never mistakes, just unexpected solos."

"We do not always dance because we are happy, but we dance and cannot help but become happy."

"Accept the challenges so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory."

"You don’t stop dancing from growing old. You grow old from stopping to dance."

"You can dance perfectly, but you will be never an artist if you dance without your soul."

"And when they ask you, ‘what is your church?’ you say, ‘I dance.’"

"All that music and only two feet."

"It’s not the turning that’s hard in pirouettes. It’s that you’ve got to keep on doing it."

"Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain."

"It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you are."

"Common sense would tell parents never to send their children to a ballet school. Common sense would tell teenagers that there is a wider and happier world beyond the grueling strictures of daily barre and class. Common sense would tell the graduating student that there are infinitely superior ways of making money than joining a professional ballet company. Common sense would tell a young dancer that very few (laughably few) of his or her colleagues will ever make it to the top or even near the top. Yet… there remains the dance and the dancer."

"If it were not for dreams there would not be such a thing as ballet, the cruelest of the performing arts."

"A day I don’t dance is a day I don’t live."

"Letting go of perfectionism, so ingrained in the nature of a ballet dancer, can be the most difficult thing."

"A dance performance is rather like going out into a battlefield. You have to hold the attention of as many as five to 10,000 people a lot of whom do not follow."

"Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God."

"The comeback is always stronger than the setback."

- Unknown