100 Inspirational Quotes Every Dancer Should Know

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

- Arianna Huffington

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

- Martha Graham

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

- Agnes de Mille

"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

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

- Misty Copeland

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

- Ruth St. Denis

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

- Misty Copeland

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

- Anna Pavlova

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

- Misty Copeland

"Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body."

- Martha Graham

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

- Alvin Ailey

"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

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

- José Limón

"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. Right now."

- George Balanchine

"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

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

- Martha Graham

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

- Fred Astaire

"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

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

- Agnes de Mille

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

- Misty Copeland

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

- Margot Fonteyn

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

- Bernard F. Asuncion

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

- Twyla Tharp

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

- Martha Graham

"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

"Dancers are made, not born."

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

"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

"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

"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

"Dance like nobody’s looking."

- Mark Twain

"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

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

- Gene Kelly

"Keep proving them wrong."

- Michaela Deprince

"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

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

- Merce Cunningham

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

- Isadora Duncan

"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

"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

"Daily dance uplifts the soul to spiritual realms."

- Lailah Gifty Akita

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

- Agnes de Mille

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

- Charles Baudelaire

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

- Samuel Beckett

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

- C.S. Lewis

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

- Normani Kordei

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

- Michaela Deprince

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

- Anna Pavlova

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

- Neve Campbell

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

- Louis Horst

"Dancers are both athletes and artists."

- Margot Fonteyn

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

- Maxwell Maltz

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

- Agnes de Mille

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

- Deborah Bull

"Inspiration comes when you let go."

- Yuan Yuan Tan

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

- Hopi Indian Saying

"Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made."

- Ted Shawn

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

- Maria Tallchief

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

- Susan Polis Schutz

"Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!"

- Constanze Mozart

"Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance."

- Dave Barry

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

- Mata Hari

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

- Lynda Barry

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

- Erol Ozan

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

- Chuck Berry

"Dance is the timeless interpretation of life."

- Shah Asad Rizvi

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

- George Carlin

"Dance is the perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire."

- George Bernard Shaw

"Life is short and there will always be dirty dishes, so let’s dance."

- James Howe

"The comeback is always stronger than the setback."

- Unknown

"Dancers don’t need wings to fly."

"Dance is the language of the soul communicating its passions without a word being spoken."

"Dance is the joy of movement and the heart of life."