How inimitably graceful children are in general before they learn to dance!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Dancing can reveal all the mystery that music conceals.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
An old cat will never learn to dance.
—Moroccan Proverb
Great dancers are not great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.
—Japanese Proverb
When the music changes, so does the dance.
—African Proverb
On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined; no sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet to chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Dancing is the poetry of the foot.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
Don’t dance on a volcano.
—French Proverb
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
—Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Before I was born my mother was in great agony of spirit and in a tragic situation. She could take no food except iced oysters and champagne. If people ask me when I began to dance, I reply, In my mother’s womb, probably as a result of the oysters and champagne – the food of Aphrodite.
—Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American Dancer, Choreographer
Dancers are the athletes of God.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
Love is the music of the Universe … just dance.
—Unknown
Socrates learned to dance when he was seventy because he felt that an essential part of himself had been neglected.
—Indian Proverb
The devil dances in empty pockets.
—English Proverb
The only dance masters I could have were Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Walt Whitman and Nietzsche.
—Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American Dancer, Choreographer
If you’ve enjoyed the dance, pay the musicians.
—German Proverb
Those who can’t dance say the music is no good.
—Jamaican Proverb
The real American type can never be a ballet dancer. The legs are too long, the body too supple and the spirit too free for this school of affected grace and toe walking.
—Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American Dancer, Choreographer
Your automatic creative mechanism is teleological. That is, it operates in terms of goals and end results. Once you give it a definite goal to achieve, you can depend upon its automatic guidance system to take you to that goal much better than “you” ever could by conscious thought. “You” supply the goal by thinking in terms of end results. Your automatic mechanism then supplies the means whereby.
—Maxwell Maltz (1899–1975) American Surgeon, Motivational Writer
You can’t lie when you dance. It’s so direct. You do what is in you. You can’t dance out of the side of your mouth.
—Shirley MacLaine (b.1934) American Actor, Dancer, Author, Activist
Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen?
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
The rich man never dances badly.
—African Proverb
He who is unable to dance says that the yard is stony
—African Proverb
Life is like a ballet performance—danced only once.
—African Proverb
Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, Dance, Dance till you drop.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
If you can walk you can dance. If you can talk you can sing.
—African Proverb
You can dance anywhere, even if only in your heart.
—Indian Proverb
A smart witch can also dance without a broomstick.
—German Proverb
I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his “divine service.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Dancing begets warmth, which is the parent of wantonness. It is, Sir, the great grandfather of cuckoldom.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
Believe me, you can have anything you want—and in abundance-when you learn to tune into the power within, an infinitely greater power than electricity, a power you have had from the beginning.
—Roger McDonald (b.1941) Australian Novelist, Poet, Screenwriter, Writer
I was exceedingly delighted with the waltz, and also with the polka. These differ in name, but there the difference ceases
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Dancing with the feet is one thing, but dancing with the heart is another.
—Unknown
You dance better with a full belly than with a new dress.
—French Proverb
The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.
—Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American Dancer, Choreographer
Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.
—Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American Poet
Who dances at the wedding, weeps at the funeral.
—Yiddish Proverb
You cannot dance well on only one leg.
—African Proverb
Dancers are the messengers of the gods.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
He who has an egg in his pocket does not dance.
—African Proverb
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
If you believe you are plenty, you will validate that belief and create plenty of abundance.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
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 (1905–93) American Dancer, Choreographer