110 Inspiring Dance Quotes

In the world of dance, every move tells a story, and every dancer carries a unique voice that speaks through their artistry. Whether you're a seasoned professional, an enthusiastic beginner, or simply an admirer of the elegance and expression embodied in dance, inspiration can come from many sources. Sometimes, the right words can spark a powerful connection, breathe new life into a practice session, or even ignite a passion that leads to a lifelong journey. We've gathered a curated collection of the top 110 inspiring dance quotes to elevate your spirit, motivate your practice, and celebrate the boundless joy that dance brings. Dive in and let these words of wisdom move you, just as any beautiful choreography would.

1. “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

2. “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

3. “All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.” - Martha Graham

4. “You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,Love like you'll never be hurt,Sing like there's nobody listening,And live like it's heaven on earth.” - William W. Purkey

5. “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.” - Martha Graham

6. “Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane.” - Howard Phillips Lovecraft

7. “It has taken me years of struggle, hard work, and research to learn to make one simple gesture, and I know enough about the art of writing to realize that it would take as many years of concentrated effort to write one simple, beautiful sentence.” - Isadora Duncan

8. “I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.” - Martha Graham

9. “There is a need to find and sing our own song, to stretch our limbs and shake them in a dance so wild that nothing can roost there, that stirs the yearning for solitary voyage.” - Barbara Lazear Ascher

10. “Ladies should also remember that gentlemen look more to the effect of a dress in setting off the figure and countenance of a lady than to its cost. Very few gentlemen have any idea the value of ladies' dresses. This is a subject for female criticism. Beauty of person and elegance of manners in women will always command more admiration from the opposite sex than beauty, elegance or costliness of clothing."The Scholars' Companion and Ball Room Vade MecumThomas Hillgrove, 1857” - Thomas Hillgrove

11. “Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temples in which something marvelous is obviously going on. Actually, practically nothing is going on.” - Kurt Vonnegut

12. “Life is sweet when you pay attention. When it doesn't seem sweet, put a sticker on your nose and do a funky dance.” - Whitney Scott

13. “Life is the dancer and you are the dance.” - Eckhart Tolle

14. “Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. ” - Dave Barry

15. “She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.” - Janet Fitch

16. “I love zombies. If any monster could Riverdance, it would be zombies.” - Craig Ferguson

17. “Dance for yourself. If someone understands, good. If not, no matter. Go right on doing what interests you, and do it until it stops interesting you.” - Louis Horst

18. “Life is short and there will always be dirty dishes, so let's dance.” - James Howe

19. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that there will always be a gentleman to dance with, except at just the moment when you require one most.” - Anna Godbersen

20. “Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.” - George Bernard Shaw

21. “Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music” - William Stafford

22. “I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to to dance better than myself.” - Mikhail Baryshnikov

23. “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

24. “When a small child, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong, happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away. ” - Anna Pavlova

25. “Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.” - Martha Graham

26. “Words his soul danced to.” - David Malouf

27. “If theater is ritual, then dance is too... It's as if the threads connecting us to the rest of the world were washed clean of preconceptions and fears. When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you.” - Paulo Coelho

28. “I don't want to hide. I want to slow dance with you again. I want to dance with you forever.” - Sarah Black

29. “Quello che voglio dire è che una condizione del genere dopo un po' diventa cronica. La ferita è riassorbita nella quotidianità e non ci si ricorda più dov'è. Ma rimane. Non è una cosa che si può tirare fuori e mostrare. Se si può, vuol dire che è una ferita da poco.” - Murakami, Haruki

30. “The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrewsNot to be born is the best for manThe second best is a formal orderThe dance's pattern, dance while you can.Dance, dance, for the figure is easyThe tune is catching and will not stopDance till the stars come down from the raftersDance, dance, dance till you drop.” - W.H. Auden

31. “You don't enter a dance studio and say "I can't do that." If you do, then why are you in the studio in the first place?” - Judith Jamison

32. “The first time I started choreographing was in the dark, in my living room, with the lights completely out, to some popular music on the radio. I put the radio on full blast and I started moving. I didn't know what it looked like. I didn't want to see it... I had to start in the dark.” - Judith Jamison

33. “There was still no likelihood that we could make a living from dance. We were doing it because we loved it... We realized how full we felt; we were surrounded by music and dancing and joy.” - Alvin Ailey

34. “The problem is not making up the steps but deciding which ones to keep.” - Mikhail Baryshnikov

35. “Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred.In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become thevictor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing then it is the eternal dance or creation. The creator and creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing...and dancing...and dancing. Until there is only...the dance.” - Michael Jackson

36. “Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion. ” - Martha Graham

37. “People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose. I was chosen to be a dancer, and with that, you live all your life. ” - Martha Graham

38. “I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of man--the landscape of his soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be.” - Martha Graham

39. “You can be Eastern or Burmese or what have you, but the function of the body and the awareness of the body results in dance and you become a dancer, not just a human being. ” - Martha Graham

40. “It's like an emotional dance party: Some dances will be your favorites -- others more awkward or difficult to learn. Some will be boring or make you mad. some you will wish you never needed to do again. But AHA! You think. I will dance all the dances I can.” - SARK

41. “الرقص مفرح...يدير الرأس...يسكر. لو عرفه الذين يشربون الخمر ليسكروا، لسكروا بالرقص بدلا مما يشربون. سكر الرقص أحسن، و دواره أرق دوار.” - يوسف زيدان

42. “The flow. Yeah. Knowing you could step on the court and make it happen. You practiced, sure. But then, when you walked out there, you could just go. You could flow, that was it: you created and you didn't totally know how. You just knew you could, so you did. It wasn't thinking and it wasn't imitating somebody else's moves, though you always looked carefully when you watched good players play. But when you played... it was something you couldn't explain. Neal used to know. It didn't come from thinking about it.” - Doug Wilhelm

43. “Ich möchte schlafen, aber du mußt tanzen."[Hyazinthen]” - Theodor Storm

44. “It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.” - Xiaolu Guo

45. “A major assumption that underlies this selection is that it is only within work that is progressive, experimental or avant-garde that staid, old-fashioned images and ideas about gender can be challenged and alternatives imagined. I have never seen a ballet performance that has not disappointed me.” - Ramsay Burt

46. “Most dancers I know, especially the talented and successful ones, seem to possess [my dog's] knack for living moment to moment. You see, their idea of time is related to those infinitely short moments when they are onstage being their superselves.” - Paul Taylor

47. “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” - Alan Wilson Watts

48. “Lermontov: Why do you want to dance?Vicky: Why do you want to live?Lermontov: Well, I don't know exactly why, but... I must.Vicky: That's my answer too.” - The Red Shoes

49. “Hello, Bradley,' said Mom. She'd regained her composure after my outburst, and now raised her camera. 'Stand close.''No, Mom,' I said. 'No pictures.''But you're friend's here now,' she said, waving us together. 'Smile!''I don't need a picture with-' the flash snapped '-another guy. That's great, Mom, thank you. Send that one to Dad and tell him we're going steady.” - Dan Wells

50. “To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” - Osho

51. “I don't use a crap camera, I don't eat junk, and I'm not going to a dance where the boys are bores” - Adriana Trigiani

52. “Really? We are being herded on a bus to drive across town to an all-boy academy where we disembark and join our lonely counterparts on a dance floor. Sounds like a scorecard situation to me.” - Adriana Trigiani

53. “When it's finals week and you've been studying for five hours straight, you need three things to get you through the nigh.The biggest Slurpee you can find,half cherry half Coke.Pajama pants, the kind that have been washed so many times they are tissue-paper thin. And finally,dance breaks. Lots of dance breaks.” - Jenny Han

54. “Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling, with a heavy pack, is easier than it sounds; you just can't fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance.” - Jack Kerouac

55. “I'm not ashamed of heroic ambitions. If man and woman can only dance upon this earth for a few countable turns of the sun... let each of us be an Artemis, Odysseus, or Zeus... Aphrodite to the extent of the will of each one.” - Roman Payne

56. “We think to dance, and dance in thought. But to hibernate in the mind, is to bring upon us an apocalypse of the Soul.” - Ilyas Kassam

57. “He's at ease, his body sculpted to the music, his shoulder searching the other shoulder, his right toe knowing the left knee, the height, the depth, the form, the control, the twist of his wrist, the bend of his elbow, the tilt of his neck, notes digging into arteries, and he is in the air now, forcing the legs up beyond muscular memory, one last press of the thighs, an elongation of form, a loosening of human contour, he goes higher and is skyheld.” - colum mccann

58. “All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing.” - Molière

59. “He was shockingly easy to follow. The pressure of his hand, the step of his foot, the angle of his frame... it was like reading his mind. When he leaned right, they turned in perfect unison. He swept her across the gallery in a quick three, a dizzying pace. Gilded frames and glass cases and the window blurred in her vision, and Azalea spun out, her skirts pulling and poofing around her, before he caught her and brought her back into dance position. She could almost hear music playing, swelling inside of her.Mother had once told her about this perfect twining into one. She called it interweave, and said it was hard to do, for it took the perfect matching of the partners’ strengths to overshadow each other’s weaknesses, meshing into one glorious dance. Azalea felt the giddiness of being locked in not a pairing, but a dance. So starkly different than dancing with Keeper. Never that horrid feeling that she owed him something; no holding her breath, wishing for the dance to end. Now, spinning from Mr. Bradford’s hand, her eyes closed, spinning back and feeling him catch her, she felt the thrill of the dance, of being matched, flow through her.”Heavens, you’re good!” said Azalea, breathless.”You’re stupendous,” said Mr. Bradford, just as breathless. “It’s like dancing with a top!” - Heather Dixon

60. “For some reason, the sight of snow descending on fire always makes me think of the ancient world – legionaries in sheepskin warming themselves at a brazier: mountain altars where offerings glow between wintry pillars; centaurs with torches cantering beside a frozen sea – scattered, unco-ordinated shapes from a fabulous past, infinitely removed from life; and yet bringing with them memories of things real and imagined. These classical projections, and something in the physical attitudes of the men themselves as they turned from the fire, suddenly suggested Poussin’s scene in which the Seasons, hand in hand and facing outward, tread in rhythm to the notes of the lyre that the winged and naked greybeard plays. The image of Time brought thoughts of mortality: of human beings, facing outwards like the Seasons, moving hand in hand in intricate measure: stepping slowly, methodically, sometimes a trifle awkwardly, in evolutions that take recognisable shape: or breaking into seeminly meaningless gyrations, while partners disappear only to reappear again, once more giving pattern to the spectacle: unable to control the melody, unable, perhaps, to control the steps of the dance.” - Anthony Powell

61. “The Indian danced on alone. The crowd clapped up the beat. The Indian danced with a chair. The crowd went crazy. The band faded. The crowd cheered. The Indian held up his hands for silence as if to make a speech. Looking at the band and then the crowd, the Indian said, "Well, what're you waiting for? Let's DANCE.” - Robert Fulghum

62. “A couple of hours after Sunset Michael Robartes returned and told me that I would have to learn the steps of an exceedingly antique dance, because before my initiation could be perfected I had to join three times in a magical dance, for rhythm was the wheel of Eternity, on which alone the transient and accidental could be broken, and the spirit set free.” - W.B. Yeats

63. “To understand what I am saying, you have to believe that dance is something other than technique. We forget where the movements come from. They are born from life. When you create a new work, the point of departure must be contemporary life -- not existing forms of dance.” - Pina Bausch

64. “For I have trained myself and am training myself always to be able to dance lightly in the service of thought” - Johannes Climacus S ren Kierkagaard

65. “Don't you agree? Swordplay is a dance of sorts, an understanding of the logical, most sophisticated next step. Except that in a fight, one must take the unexpected step. In dance it is all about taking the right, expected step.” - Lisa Tawn Bergren

66. “If you've got nothing to dance about, find a reason to sing.” - Melody Carstairs

67. “Righteous, I like that. Kinda fitting when you think about it. If we danced and shared music, we'd be too busy en-joy-in' life to start a war.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

68. “Robot. Is. Sad. Because silly bitch. Will. Not. Dance.” - Libba Bray

69. “Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair...” - Susan Polis Schutz

70. “As the sun began to rise, the man reached out to the woman, and they clasped hands. He cradled her, and languidly they lifted themselves up to their feet, their bodies brushing, their eyes lost in each other's. Sensuously, deliberately, they danced, moving as though they were one, their body language smooth as their limbs carefully unfolded. They twirled and rocked, intertwined and separated, nearly leaning onto one another but barely touching, their movements sometimes tender, sometimes almost violent...Moments passed while the dancers held tight to each other, as though their bodies were melting together. The expression on their features as they lifted their faces to the sky was one of unimaginable joy.” - Hannah Fielding

71. “Never dance in a puddle when there's a hole in your shoe (it's always best to take your shoes off first).” - John D. Rhodes

72. “CHEERS, CARTER. At least you have the sense to hand me the microphone for important things.Honestly, he drones on and on about his plans for the Apocalypse, but he makes no plans at all for the school dance. My brother's priorities are severely skewed.Sadie Kane” - Rick Riordan

73. “You dance love, and you dance joy, and you dance dreams. And I know if I can make you smile by jumping over a couple of couches or running through a rainstorm, then I'll be very glad to be a song and dance man.” - Gene Kelly

74. “Trabalhe como se você não precisasse do dinheiro, ame como se você nunca tivesse sido magoado, e dance como se ninguém estivesse te observando.” - Martha Medeiros

75. “Let me tell you something: when you dance, you are the greatest dancer who has ever lived. And when you sing, you will have the courage to raise your voice to the heavens, knowing that you may never get an answer.” - Emma Forrest

76. “How inappropriate,’ Lila said coldly. ‘Who’d ever dream of showing up at a dance in a wheelchair? What does she think she’s going to do all night?” - Francine Pascal

77. “LIfe is just a game of chance, a dance with fate if you let it be so. Or you could chose to play by your rules to win.” - Steven Redhead

78. “Do a loony-goony dance 'Cross the kitchen floor, Put something silly in the world That ain't been there before.” - Shel Silverstein

79. “Let us fly, Madam Harpy Queen. Show me how you dance on the wind.” - Lita Burke

80. “I danced frightening things. They were frightened of me and therefore thought that I wanted to kill them. I did not want to kill anyone. I loved everyone, but no one loved me, and therefore I became nervous.” - Vaslav Nijinsky

81. “The Argentine tango isn't here to play nicely with the other children. The Argentine tango is here to seduce your women, spill things on your rug, and sneak out your bedroom window in the middle of the night.” - Seanan McGuire

82. “It's a pelvis thrust, not a pelvic wiggle.” - Jessica Verday

83. “Well, Kessa, I am glad to see that you're taking your body seriously. I shudder when I see the girls leaving class and heading for the nearest hamburger, coke, and French fry station.The thought of them pouring all those dead calories into themselves makes me want to cry. You'd think after a rigorous dance class they'd have more respect for their bodies.” - Steven Levenkron

84. “Sing before the spirits and dance with the earth deitiesAnd you will be able to compose your own tune.Then you and I, united, will clap hands joyously,Singing 'tum-tiddly-um tum-tiddly-um-tum.” - Hongzhi Zhengjue

85. “Show me slowly what I onlyknow the limits ofDance me to the end of love” - Leonard Cohen

86. “A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.” - Robert McKee

87. “Labour is blossoming or dancing whereThe body is not bruised to pleasure soul.” - W.B. Yeats

88. “What I have to tell you is this: I am resolved that dancing is to be my path. I know that to be a dancer is to be considered in our world little more than a prostitute. But you cannot imagine what is happening here in Berlin. It is different back home, but in Europe dance is being reborn as something more than cheap entertainment by loose women.” - Wendy Buonaventura

89. “It is strange to hear my wordsRead back to me.I don't think I wrote themTo have them ever leave the page.I think I only writeWhat happens across my brainWhen my feet are too weary To dance anymore.” - Stasia Ward Kehoe

90. “Hema thought of Shiva, her personal deity, and how the only sensible response to the madness of life . . . was to cultivate a kind of madness within, to perform the mad dance of Shiva, . . . to rock and sway and flap six arms and six legs to an inner tune. Hema moved gently . . . she danced as if her minimalist gestures were shorthand for a much larger, fuller, reckless dance, one that held the whole world together, kept it from extinction.” - Abraham Verghese

91. “And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon.” - Edward Lear

92. “Dance comes naturally to us when we're little but fades when we get older. Too many people let the stresses of life get them wound up. I think there's something to be said for cutting loose and having a good time. And hey, people even danced in Bible days.” - Janice Thompson

93. “So that's how we end up helping Aviva pick out a male escort. Even Darcy is impressed with Eugene's organization; each profile in the boy binder has two pictures, a head shot and a full-body shot, and lists essential information: age, school, height, weight, extracurriculars, hobbies, and dance ability (which ranges from "occasional Dance Dance Revolution participation" to "so good he could back up the Biebs").” - Flynn Meaney

94. “And yet if I drew my thoughts back from him, what life would I have? I would be like a dancer who had practiced since childhood for a performance she would never give.” - Arthur Golden

95. “Words to intrigue, inspire, examine, question, praise; Words to help us appreciate our world, our selves, our games; Words to dance our true soul fires gracefully free.” - jay woodman

96. “Talk about dance? Dance is not something to talk about. Dance is to dance.” - Peter Saint James

97. “Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made.” - Ted Shawn

98. “Dance with me, Death, I am ready.” - Terry Goodkind

99. “Last night I danced. My body rose from its slump for the first time since the beginning of sorrows—my fingers beckoning to the stars at arm's length, back arching as tingles bubbled up my spine, hips caught in a silent tempo while on tiptoe I twirled in endless euphoric circles. It didn't matter that you loved me or that you didn't. For I was wanted by the gods last night, their seraphs and muses descending on moonbeams into my midst, caressing my face and gliding their spirited arms about my waist, lifting my toes from the soil that I might feel what it is to fly without heaviness of heart. I danced with them under the glow of a loyal moon. For one brief, visceral dance I joyed as Heaven joys—in endless bliss.And the universe cherished me.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

100. “If you are not dancing, your dead.” - Lisa Alpine

101. “There is no one Reality,There is only one's Perception.Love Never Fails.keep doing The Happy Dance” - Silvina Faiella Miller

102. “The groove is so mysterious. We're born with it and we lose it and the world seems to split apart before our eyes into stupid and cool. When we get it back, the world unifies around us, and both stupid and cool fall away.I am grateful to those who are keepers of the groove. The babies and the grandmas who hang on to it and help us remember when we forget that any kind of dancing is better than no dancing at all.” - Lynda Barry

103. “Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.” - Robert Fulghum

104. “A man whose eyes love opens risks his soul -His dancing breaks beyond the mind's control.” - Attar of Nishapur

105. “Jim Crow, moreover, was seen executing his world-renowned dance, in gingerbread.” - Nathaniel Hawthorne

106. “Relax. Refresh. Renew. Play. Sing. Laugh. Enjoy. Forgive. Dance. Love. Hug. Share. Kiss. Create. Explore. Hope. Listen. Dare. Trust. Dream. Learn. TODAY!” - Steve Maraboli

107. “Busy days galore...thoughts in a kaleidoscope of dervish dances.” - Al Cash

108. “So just bust a move!” - Ava J. Abramowitz

109. “So what, you assumed you’d show up before the dance and I’d magically be ready to go? I need warning to get beautiful.” - S.M. Reine

110. “I am love, I am music, she thinks. Let’s dance.” - Paulo Coelho