Dance quotes
1.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside dance — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"For hardly any man dances when sober, unless he is insane. Nor does he dance while alone, nor at a respectable and moderate party. Dancing is the final phase of a wild party with fancy decorations and a multitude of delights."
"And let that day be lost to us on which we did not dance once! And let that wisdom be false to us that brought no laughter with it!"
"I should not believe in a God who does not dance."
"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."
"I'd rather fight a buzzsaw than dance."
"All the gestures of children are graceful; the reign of distortion and unnatural attitudes commences with the introduction of the dancing master."
"It's really cool to see glowsticks at the show, to see dance music culture infiltrating and becoming one with the metal community."
"I've relaxed my feelings about other companies performing my works. I have never in principle been against my ballets being danced by other companies. Rather, it is that we lack the time, space and money to insure that they are done well. To me, the only sin is mediocrity."
"The world I'm interested in is the one where things are not named."
"Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. The instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived ... the human body."
"Success will win you false friends and true enemies - succeed anyway."
"They said that Etta James is still vulgar. I said, Oh, how dare them say I'm still vulgar. I'm vulgar because I dance in the chair. What would they want me to do? Want me to just be still or something like that? I've got to do something."
"Many a maiden, With white feet glancing light as air, Made happy music through the gloom."
"Life is like an eternal dance. The movements of the dance are choreographed through your awareness."
"When I discovered dancing, I learned to dream."
"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."
"Dance on the edge of mystery."
"Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. When that has educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness,to grace, the steps of the dancing-master are better forgotten; so painting teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form, and as I see many pictures and higher genius in the art, I see the boundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms."
"I don't do well with snakes and I can't dance."
"Dance where you can break yourself up to pieces and totally abandon your worldly passions."
