Inspiring Dance Quotes to Ignite Your Passion

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

- Edward Lear

"Dancers are the athletes of God."

- Albert Einstein

"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

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

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

"Dancers are made, not born."

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

- Michaela Deprince

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

- Erol Ozan

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

- Misty Copeland

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

- Chuck Berry

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

- Normani Kordei

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

- Lynda Barry

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

- Gene Kelly

"Keep proving them wrong."

- Michaela Deprince

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

- Anna Pavlova

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

- Merce Cunningham

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

- Trisha Brown

"Your fragility is also your strength."

- Pina Bausch

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

- Paulo Coelho

"Dancers are both athletes and artists."

- Margot Fonteyn

"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

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

- Agnes de Mille

"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

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

- Ruth St. Denis

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

- Sylvie Guillem

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

- Martha Graham

"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

"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

"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

"Every morning I am a beginner."

- Hanya Holm

"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

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

- Neve Campbell

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

- Anna Pavlova

"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

"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

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

- Katherine Jenkins

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

- Deborah Bull

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

- Charles Baudelaire

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

- Agnes de Mille

"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

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

- George Carlin

"Dance is the hidden language of the soul."

- Martha Graham

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

- A Chorus Line

"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

"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

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

- Friedrich Nietzsche

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

- Samuel Beckett

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

- Margot Fonteyn

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

- Arianna Huffington

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

- Misty Copeland

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

- Martha Graham

"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 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

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

- Agnes de Mille

"The body says what words cannot."

- Martha Graham

"Dancing is silent poetry."

- Simonides

"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

"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

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

- C.S. Lewis

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

- Erik Bruhn

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

- Anna Pavlova

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

- Michael Jackson

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

- Vera Ellen

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

- Twyla Tharp

"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

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

- Louis Horst

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

- Japanese Proverb

"Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!"

- Constanze Mozart

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

- Kurt Vonnegut

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

- Pierce Brosnan

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

- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

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

- Steven Thompson

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

- Susan Polis Schutz

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

- Emma Goldman

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

- Lee Ann Womack

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

- Debasish Mridha

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

- Jamaican Proverb

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

- Edwin Denby

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

- Friedrich Nietzsche

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

- Jeanne Stein

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

- Joker

"The comeback is always stronger than the setback."

- Unknown

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

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

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

"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."

"No standing. Only dancing."

"Dance lightly with life."

"When I dance I love to express myself in emotion. I most serenely do not do it to impress people, if anything I impress myself in how good of a goon I am doing."

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

"Mom, you know, people are just really beautiful. Just like look at all those beautiful dancers. I think I could like a girl. I could date girls."

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