100+ Dance Inspirational Quotes to Ignite Your Passion and Movement

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

- Agnes de Mille

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

- Misty Copeland

"Dance is the hidden language of the soul."

- Martha Graham

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

- Martha Graham

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

- Agnes de Mille

"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment."

- Jim Rohn

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

- Will Durant

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

- Ruth St. Denis

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain."

- Vivian Greene

"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

"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

"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great."

- Zig Ziglar

"I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired."

- Martha Graham

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

- Martha Graham

"Dancers are made, not born."

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

"Quality of practice is better than the quantity of practice."

- Ricardo Romero

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

- Martha Graham

"There is no magic to achievement. It's really about hard work, choices, and persistence."

- Michelle Obama

"Opportunities don't happen. You create them."

- Chris Grosser

"You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth."

- William W. Purkey

"Dance is the hidden language of the soul"

- Martha Graham

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

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

- Samuel Beckett

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

- Robert Collier

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

- Rudolf Nureyev

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

- Martha Graham

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

- Doris Humphrey

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

- Anna Pavlova

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

- Darcey Bussell

"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

"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

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

- Sylvie Guillem

"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

"Dance is a great way to express yourself."

- Darcey Bussell

"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

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

- Oprah Winfrey

"Dance like nobody’s looking."

- Mark Twain

"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

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

- Darcey Bussell

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

- Martha Graham

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

- Pina Bausch

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

- Agnes de Mille

"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

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

- Misty Copeland

"Forget your troubles and dance."

- Bob Marley

"Dance and you’ll feel better."

- James Brown

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

- Erik Bruhn

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

- Michaela Deprince

"The body says what words cannot."

- Martha Graham

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."

- Arthur Ashe

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

- Margot Fonteyn

"The expert in anything was once a beginner."

- Helen Hayes

"Dance. Smile. Giggle. Marvel. TRUST. HOPE. LOVE. WISH. BELIEVE. Most of all, enjoy every moment of the journey, and appreciate where you are at this moment instead of always focusing on how far you have to go."

- Mandy Hale

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

- Trisha Brown

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others"

- Martha Graham

"Your fragility is also your strength."

- Pina Bausch

"Life is the dancer and you are the dance."

- Eckhart Tolle

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost."

- Martha Graham

"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."

- Alan Watts

"You'll learn, as you get older, that rules are made to be broken. Be bold enough to live life on your terms, and never, ever apologize for it. Go against the grain, refuse to conform, take the road less traveled instead of the well-beaten path. Laugh in the face of adversity, and leap before you look. Dance as though EVERYBODY is watching. March to the beat of your own drummer. And stubbornly refuse to fit in."

- Mandy Hale

"Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free."

- Rumi

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

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

- Merce Cunningham

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

- Agnes de Mille

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

- Isadora Duncan

"Daily dance uplifts the soul to spiritual realms."

- Lailah Gifty Akita

"Dance is the timeless interpretation of life."

- Shah Asad Rizvi

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

- Katherine Dunham

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

- Pearl Primus

"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

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

- Sylvie Guillem

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

- Merce Cunningham

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

- 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

"Every morning I am a beginner."

- Hanya Holm

"A year from now, you may wish you had started today."

- Karen Lamb

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

- Vicki Baum

"Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!"

- Constanze Mozart

"Dance is the purest expression of every emotion, earthly and spiritual."

- Anna Pavlova

"You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you."

- Isadora Duncan

"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 fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls."

- Merce Cunningham

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

- Misty Copeland

"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

"Learn the craft of knowing how to open your heart and to turn on your creativity. There’s a light inside of you."

- Judith Jamison

"The moment is everything. Don’t think about tomorrow; don’t think about yesterday: think about exactly what you’re doing right now and live it and dance it and breath it and be it."

- Wendy Whelan

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

- Twyla Tharp

"To follow, without halt, one aim: There’s the secret of success."

- Anna Pavlova

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

- Napoleon Hill

"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."

- Confucius

"Do not be embarrassed by your failures; learn from them and start again."

- Richard Branson

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."

- Henry Ford

"The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces."

- Will Rogers

"The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Normani Kordei

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

- Mark Twain

"Keep proving them wrong."

- Michaela Deprince

"Dance is art; paint your dream and follow it."

- Steven Thompson

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

- C.S. Lewis

"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

"The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs."

- Charles Baudelaire

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

- Anna Pavlova

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

- Merce Cunningham

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

- Maxwell Maltz

"Follow your passion. Find that something that makes you want to work at it. Work hard. Nothing comes without hard work."

- Tomas Schramek

"I don’t want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance."

- George Balanchine

"Dancers are the athletes of God."

- Albert Einstein

"If you wait, all that happens is you get older."

- Larry McMurtry

"Dancing is the poetry of the foot."

- John Dryden

"Dancing is silent poetry."

- Simonides

"To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it."

- Osho

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

- Louis Horst

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

- Arianna Huffington

"Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain."

- Martha Graham

"I’m going to tap until I can’t – I’ll be so old, all I can do is walk out from the wings to stage centre. But I’ll be there."

- Gregory Hines

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

- Alarmel Valli

"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

"Even today when I rehearse, I give it everything that I’ve got.  If I’m in a performance and the lights go out, I glow in the dark.  When you’re working before an audience, you have to make them feel like they can touch you.  That’s the dancer within, reaching out."

- Mitzi Gaynor

"Dancers are both athletes and artists."

- Margot Fonteyn

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

- Chuck Berry

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

- Agnes de Mille

"Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye, but the dance lives on."

- Michael Jackson

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

- Katherine Jenkins

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

- Bernard F. Asuncion

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

- Hopi Indian Saying

"I have no desire to prove anything by dancing…I just dance."

- Fred Astaire

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

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"When you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance."

- Lee Ann Womack

"If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution."

- Emma Goldman

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

- Isadora Duncan

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

- Gene Kelly

"In a society that worships love, freedom and beauty, dance is sacred. It is a prayer for the future, a remembrance of the past and a joyful exclamation of thanks for the present."

- Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

"The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word."

- Mata Hari

"Most people fail not because of a lack of desire but because of a lack of commitment."

- Vince Lombardi

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

- Paulo Coelho

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

- Alexander Pushkin

"Some of my happiest moments have been dancing."

- Claire Danes

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

- Erol Ozan

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

- Neve Campbell

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

- George Carlin

"To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love."

- Jane Austen

"The job of feet is walking, but their hobby is dancing."

- Amit Kalantri

"Feet’s job is to walk, but their passion is dancing."

- Priyanshu Singh

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

- Fred Astaire

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

- Edwin Denby

"If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough."

- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

"Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we’re here we should dance."

- Jeanne Stein

"Let us dance in the sun, wearing wildflowers in our hair…"

- Susan Polis Schutz

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

- Pierce Brosnan

"Hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon."

- Edward Lear

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

- A Chorus Line

"Dancing is like bank robbery. It takes split-second timing."

- Twyla Tharp

"The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing."

- James Brown

"Repetition is the mother of skill."

- Tony Robbins

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

- Hindu proverb

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

- Japanese Proverb

"Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but the living room…"

- Kurt Vonnegut

"Those who can’t dance say the music is no good."

- Jamaican Proverb

"Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair..."

- Susan Polis Schutz

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

- Vera Ellen

"Bleeding feet will bond us."

- Liza Minnelli

"Dance is a little insanity that does us all good."

- Edward Demby

"When your knowledge increases over time, you learn to dance in your mind."

- Debasish Mridha

"Sleep my little baby-oh Sleep until you waken When you wake you'll see the world If I'm not mistaken... Kiss a lover Dance a measure, Find your name And buried treasure... Face your life Its pain, Its pleasure, Leave no path untaken."

- Neil Gaiman

"The spine is the tree of life. Respect it."

- Martha Graham

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

- Lynda Barry

"Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world."

- Voltaire

"Faeries, come take me out of this dull world, For I would ride with you upon the wind, Run on the top of the dishevelled tide, And dance upon the mountains like a flame."

- William Butler Yeats

"Trust me, you can dance."

- Vodka

"She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar."

- Janet Fitch

"Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire."

- George Bernard Shaw

"Dancing is like a shower: one wrong turn and you’re in hot water!"

- Mad Magazine

"You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

- Joker

"After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels."

- Ann Richards

"Do a loony-goony dance 'Cross the kitchen floor, Put something silly in the world That ain't been there before."

- Shel Silverstein

"May all your shuffle hop steps dance lightly on your SOLE. And you never experience a CRAMP in your ROLL."

- Laurie Johnson

"Somebody just gave me a shower radio. Thanks a lot. Do you really want music in the shower? I guess there's no better place to dance than a slick surface next to a glass door."

- Jerry Seinfeld

"And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon."

- Edward Lear

"Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane."

- Marcus Tullius Cicero and H.P. Lovecraft

"Dance enables you to find yourself and yourself at the same time."

- Unknown

"Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong."

"Don’t let people discourage you. Just fluff out your tutu and dance away."

"I dance because there’s no greater feeling in the world than moving a piece of music and letting the rest of the world disappear."

"When you feel like quitting, think about why you started."

- Unknown

"’One more time’ is always a lie."

- Unknown

"Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance."

"Dancing is the art of getting your feet out of the way faster than your partner can step on them."

"Dancing with the feet is one thing, but dancing with the heart is another."

"We can’t choose the music that life gives us, but we can choose how to dance to it."

"Behind every dancer who believes in themselves is a teacher who believed in them first."

- Unknown

"The comeback is always stronger than the setback."

- Unknown

"No standing. Only dancing."

"It's not the hours you put in, but what you put into the hours."

"True mastery lies not in perfection, but in the ability to connect and inspire."

"Dance lightly with life."

"One who expresses one’s self through dance is a dancer. One who expresses one’s self through a dancer is a dance teacher."

- Unknown

"An amazing dance teacher is hard to find difficult to part with & impossible to forget."

- Unknown

"A dance teacher helps her students find the song in their heart the beat in their feet and a passion for life."

- Unknown

"Friends that dance together, stay together."

- Unknown

"Confidence is silent. Insecurities are loud."

"What seems so hard now will someday be your warm up."

- Unknown