Dance is the hidden language of the soul.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
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
When the music changes, so does the dance.
—African Proverb
The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.
—Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American Dancer, Choreographer
Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-American Philosopher, Poet, Sculptor
It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind; but when a beginning is made—when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt—it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word.
—Mata Hari (1876–1917) Dutch Dancer, Spy in WWII
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.
—Anonymous
They who love dancing too much seem to have more brains in their feet than in their head.
—Terence (c.195–159 BCE) Roman Comic Dramatist
Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
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
Either dance well or quit the ballroom.
—Greek Proverb
Learn to dance, not so much for the sake of dancing, as for coming into a room and presenting yourself genteelly and gracefully.—Women, whom you ought to endeavor to please, cannot forgive a vulgar and awkward air and gestures.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
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
The gymnasium of running, walking on stilts, climbing, etc., steels and makes hardy single powers and muscles, but dancing, like a corporeal poesy, embellishes, exercises, and equalizes all the muscles at once.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Philosopher
A merry, dancing, drinking, laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
—Dave Barry (b.1947) American Humorist, Columnist
The chief benefit of dancing is to learn one how to sit still.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Dancers are the athletes of God.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
The Twist was a guided missile, launched from the ghetto into the very heart of suburbia. The Twist succeeded, as politics, religion, and law could never do, in writing in the heart and soul what the Supreme Court could only write on the books.
—Eldridge Cleaver (1935–98) American Activist, Writer
How inimitably graceful children are in general before they learn to dance!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
We ought to dance with rapture that we might be alive… and part of the living, incarnate cosmos.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Critic
I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, 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
I don’t want people who want to dance; I want people who have to dance.
—George Balanchine (1904–83) Russian-Born American Choreographer, Actor
Nothing is more revealing than movement.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
The girl who can’t dance says the band can’t play.
—Yiddish Proverb
A ballroom is nothing more or less than a great market place of beauty.—For my part, were I a buyer, I should like making my purchases in a less public mart.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
Those who can’t dance say the music is no good.
—Jamaican Proverb
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