50 Inspiring Dance Quotes to Ignite Your Passion and Movement

"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

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

- Martha Graham

"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

"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

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

- Agnes de Mille

"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

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

- Gene Kelly

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

- Oprah Winfrey

"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

"I always work hard to find a way to disconnect from the thinking until it becomes second nature to me because that’s where you find the best moments. Dancing is like that for me all the time. It makes me feel free."

- Jennifer Lopez

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

- Anna Pavlova

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

- Paulo Coelho

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

- Agnes de Mille

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

- Merce Cunningham

"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

"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

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

- Martha Graham

"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

"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

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

- George Balanchine

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

- Tomas Schramek

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

- Misty Copeland

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

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"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

"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

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

- C.S. Lewis

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

- Steven Thompson

"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

"Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!"

- Constanze Mozart

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

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Arianna Huffington

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

- Samuel Beckett

"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

"The body says what words cannot."

- Martha Graham

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

- Fred Astaire

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

- Vicki Baum

"Dancing is the poetry of the foot."

- John Dryden

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

- Alexander Pushkin

"Some of my happiest moments have been dancing."

- Claire Danes

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

- Louis Horst

"Dancing is silent poetry."

- Simonides

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

- Katherine Jenkins

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

- Fred Astaire

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

- Jeanne Stein

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

- Lynda Barry

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

- Mata Hari

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

- Alarmel Valli

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

- Isadora Duncan

"Why walk when you can dance?"

- Ellen van Dam

"Dance is the timeless interpretation of life."

- Shah Asad Rizvi

"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

"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

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

- Margot Fonteyn

"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

"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

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

- Erol Ozan

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

- Pierce Brosnan

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

- Susan Polis Schutz

"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

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

- Shanna LaFleur

"Dance is a language beyond words, expressing that for which we have no words."

- Jennifer de Leon

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

- Lyall Watson

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

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

"Dancers are made, not born."

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

- Normani Kordei

"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

"Dancers are both athletes and artists."

- Margot Fonteyn

"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

"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

"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

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

- Neve Campbell

"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

"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

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

- Ann Richards

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

- Kurt Vonnegut

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

- Japanese Proverb

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

- Edward Demby

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

- Vera Ellen

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

- Misty Copeland

"Dance is a great way to express yourself."

- Darcey Bussell

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

- Hopi Indian Saying

"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

"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

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

- Charles Baudelaire

"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

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

- Hindu proverb

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

- George Carlin

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

- Martha Graham

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

- Deborah Bull

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

- Anna Pavlova

"Bleeding feet will bond us."

- Liza Minnelli

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

- Chuck Berry

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

- Jamaican Proverb

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

- Debasish Mridha

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

- Michaela Deprince

"Get up off of that thing. Dance and you’ll feel better."

- James Brown

"Your fragility is also your strength."

- Pina Bausch

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

- Mad Magazine

"Trust me, you can dance."

- Vodka

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

- Joker

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

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

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

"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."

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

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

- Unknown

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

"’One more time’ is always a lie."

- Unknown

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

- 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

"Dance lightly with life."

"No standing. Only dancing."

"Friends that dance together, stay together."

- Unknown

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

- Unknown

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

- Unknown

"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