65 Inspirational Dancing Quotes

Dance is a universal language that transcends cultural boundaries and speaks to the soul. It has the power to inspire and uplift, to tell stories and evoke emotion, often without uttering a single word. Whether you're a dancer yourself, an admirer of the art, or simply someone looking for a touch of inspiration, the right words can capture the essence of this beautiful form of expression. In this post, we've gathered a curated collection of the top 65 inspirational dancing quotes that celebrate the passion, grace, and transformative power of dance. Let these quotes inspire you to move with confidence, live with rhythm, and embrace the dance of life.

1. “Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.” - Voltaire

2. “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” - Friedrich Wilhelm 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. “Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane.” - Howard Phillips Lovecraft

5. “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

6. “Dance is the hidden language of the soul” - Martha Graham

7. “After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.” - Ann Richards

8. “Fuck Art, let's Dance!” - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

9. “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

10. “Every savage can dance.” - Jane Austen

11. “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

12. “Wohl niemand tanzt, wenn er nüchtern ist, er müsste denn den Verstand verloren haben.” - Cicero

13. “Sometimes I dance, alone, to music no-one can hear but me. When I dance I feel the beat of the earth’s own heart rise through my feet and legs, through my loins and belly and into my chest, until my own heart beats in time with the earth’s. Then I wonder if you feel it too, beneath that portion of the earth’s crust where you stand, or walk, or lie, or dance too. Because always, when I’m dancing, I’m dancing with you.” - Sarah Bower

14. “Back at home, after some prodding from Tereza, he admitted that he had been jealous watching her dance with a colleague of his. "You mean you were really jealous?" she asked him ten times or more, incredulously, as though someone had just informed her she had been awarded a Nobel Peace prize. Then she put her arm around his waist and began dancing across the room. The step she used was not the one she had shown off in the bar. It was more like a village polka, a wild romp that sent her legs flying in the air and her torso bounding all over the room, with Tomas in tow. Before long, unfortunately, she bagan to be jealous herself, and Tomas saw her jealously not as a Nobel Prize, but as a burden, a burden he would be saddled with until not long before his death.” - Milan Kundera

15. “Kiss a lover, Dance a measure, Find your name And buried treasure. Face your life, It's pain, It's pleasure, Leave no path untaken.” - Neil Gaiman

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

17. “That's most interesting. But I was no more a mind-reader then than today. Iwas weeping for an altogether different reason. When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. Morescientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But aharsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could notremain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. That is what I saw. It wasn't really you, what you were doing, I know that. But I saw you and it broke my heart. And I've never forgotten.” - Kazuo Ishiguro

18. “Nobody wanted your dance,Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your flounderingDrowning life and your effort to save yourself,Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil,Looking for something to give.” - Ted Hughes

19. “Well, that depends, I suppose. I heard someone once say that men dance the same way they have sex. So, if you want everyone here to think you're the kind of guy who just sits around and—" He stood up. "Let's dance.” - Richelle Mead

20. “I drove in last night,' he said. 'I couldn't sleep, it was too hot. So I went outside. I was feeling melancholy. Then I danced with a beautiful girl, and I felt better. What's your story?” - Judy Blundell

21. “If a man doesn't know how to dance he doesn't know how to make love, there I said it!” - Craig Ferguson

22. “The sacred sense of beyond, of timelessness, of a world which had an eternal value and the substance of which was divine had been given back to me today by this friend of mine who taught me dancing.” - Hermann Hesse

23. “Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer.” - Louise Gluck

24. “Dancing. I couldn't understand the fascination my brother had for it, but I could respect what it meant to him. How could one imagine and wonder about something so simple? An action most take for granted, yet to those with limited abilities, it's as special as floating on a cloud and snatching the nearest star from the sky to stuff in your pocket so you might wish upon it whenever you choose.” - Veronica Randolph Batterson

25. “Dance, my darling dance! If you dance then death can't catch you! Nothing bad can touch you! Dance!” - Jackie French

26. “Human beings used to be molecules which could do many, many different sorts of dances, or decline to dance at all --as they pleased. My mother could do the waltz, the tango, the rumba....” - Kurt Vonnegut

27. “More wine for me, pour me some more!" "You smart girl, I knew you're a smart girl, just teasing...” Faces turn red, the dark earth blood is rising. They wink at Pelka, wink at the host: "He knows his goods!" The women feel the buttons constricting them - they undo one, another, a third. By twos the guests go outside to get some air. "Well, my dear guests, are you soaked to the gills? Eh? And now-to dance! Get lively!" The table and the chairs vanish. The middle of the room is empty. Ivan the Monk jumps out of his hole, a tambourine in his hands: "Tim-ta-a-am! Tim-ta-a-am!" “Eh-hey!" the redhead suddenly snatches the tambourine and sweeps off, tapping wildly in a circle. Eyes closed: a white sleepless sun-a white night on the meadow-white columns of smoke swaying over fires... "Eh-ah!"-to whirl herself to death, to whirl out everything, to empty herself - nothing has ever been... Heavy boots are thumping on the floor, beards fly in the wind, the frock-coat tails go flying... hey, get going, faster, faster - a hundred versts an hour! ("The North")” - Yevgeny Zamyatin

28. “I told Ing once that she dances like a German and she didn't like it, but it's true: she dances seriously, like lives are hanging in the balance, like precision dancing can save the starving children of India. ” - Audrey Niffenegger

29. “The philosopher's soul dwells in his head, the poet's soul is in his heart; the singer's soul lingers about his throat, but the soul of the dancer abides in all her body.” - Kahlil Gibran

30. “A fit encomium for marital bliss," Beaumont said, putting down his knife and fork. "Dancing to a tune one neither likes nor understands, with a partner who thinks you a cadaver.” - Eloisa James

31. “I don't know if watching Chaz Bono will turn your kids into transsexuals, but I'm pretty sure that letting them watch Keith Ablow will turn them into assholes” - Lewis Black

32. “I love you,' cooed Fake Amy. 'You dance so much better than the Doctor.''Silly.' Real Amy nudged her in the ribs. 'Hippos dance better than the Doctor.” - James Goss

33. “I was never very good with either my hands or feet. It always seemed to me they'd just been stuck on as an afterthought during my making. Dreams didn't translate through sports, or music, dancing, carpentry, plumbing. I was the bookish kid, more at home in the pages of a fantasy than in the room in the town on the planet.” - Steve Rasnic Tem

34. “You can't dance cheerfully. Dancing is too important. It can be wild or solemn or gay or lewd or art for art's sake, but it can't be cheerful.” - Rex Stout

35. “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

36. “I was all too aware of his hands resting on my lower back, their imprints like sweet flames that seemed to go through the thin fabric of my dress and onto my skin.” - Markelle Grabo

37. “And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing. Taken in that light, certainly their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could place them in such a view. You will allow that in both man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both it is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of each; and that when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each other till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty each to endeavor to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she had bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest to keep their own imaginations from wandering towards the perfections of their neighbors, or fancying that they should have been better off with any one else.” - Jane Austen

38. “Why?” she whispered. “Why should I dance with you?”“Because I love you. Because I love you so much I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make it go differently this time.”... "Because we should be a married couple, because I never wanted to not be married to you. Because all these men out here dancing with their wives can’t possibly love them as much as I love you. Because for me, there is only one woman, and I’m sorry to break it to you, but you’re it.” - Erin McCarthy

39. “There is no real bravery in getting paid to save someone's life. However, there is a large amount of bravery in a nurse break dancing at the hospital's Christmas party.” - Shannon Alder

40. “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

41. “Vous craignez les livres comme certaines bourgades ont craint les violons. Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde.” - Voltaire

42. “He started to dance. And all at once, because Cole was dancing, I was dancing. And this Cole was even more persuasive than the last one. This was everything about Cole's smile made into a real thing, a physical object made out of his hands looped around me, and his long body pushed up against mine. I loved to dance, but I'd always been aware that I was dancing, aware of what my body was doing. Now, with this music thumping and Cole dancing with me, everything became invisible but the music. I was invisible. My hips were the booming bass. My hands on Cole were the wails of the synthesizer. My body was nothing but the hard, pulsing beat of the track. My thoughts were flashes in between the downbeats. beat:my hand pressed on Cole's stomachbeat: our hips crushed togetherbeat: Cole's laughbeat: we were one personEven knowing that Cole was good at this because it was what he did didn't make it any less of an amazing thing. Plus, he wasn't trying to be amazing without me--every move of his body was to make us move together. There was no ego, just the music and our bodies.When the track ended, Cole stepped back, out of breath, half a smile on his face. I couldn't see how he could stop. I wanted to dance until I couldn't stand up. I wanted to crush our bodies against each other until there was no pulling them apart. "You're an addiction," I told him."You should know.” - Maggie Stiefvater

43. “The music of revelation announces itself to the reader in somber brooding tones or in melodies light as air and one is invited to dance with the most captivating of partners: poetry.” - Aberjhani

44. “For truth to tell, 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 pen- that one must learn how to write” - Friedrich Nietzsche

45. “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

46. “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

47. “Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sakes. Now, I mean, I'm talking about singing in the shower, I'm talking about dancing to the radio, I'm talking about writing a poem to a friend--a lousy poem.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

48. “She imagined herself whirling breathlessly beneath the flashing lights of some impossibly chic Manhattan disco. Suddenly, a hand touches her arm. She turns. ‘Pardon me,’ Mick Jagger says, 'I believe this next dance is mine.” - Francine Pascal

49. “Death is a part of Life, they are dancing together the dance of infinity in front of the gates of Time. We can live our dreams as we are dreaming our future. Time is the Endless Consciousness” - Grigoris Deoudis

50. “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

51. “Justus tried to make an objective assessment of Miguel. What was the big deal with him, anyway? So he was easy on the eyes. Actually that was an understatement; he was for female eyes, a virtual feast. He was a perfect physical specimen, and very sensual. He seemed to positively ooze sex and eroticism with his every move, look, and touch. Justus turned her head toward him to steal a glance at his profile, but he caught her looking at him.His eyes were so arresting, they were a dark, fierce green, like beautiful shining emeralds. She also noticed flecks of gold laced through them, reminiscent of cat’s eyes. Not any ordinary house cat, these were the eyes of a wild predator.He was a panther; with his black hair and green eyes and the way he moved, so gracefully, yet with definite strength and agility. She sighed to herself, so much for her objectivity.” - Amanda Bretz

52. “I won't mistake you for problems with me. I won't let my moods ruin this you'll see. I won't take everything good and move it away. I won't be left dancing along to songs from the past.” - Sara Quin

53. “I strike the ground with the soles of my feet and life rises up my legs, spreads up my skeleton, takes possession of me, drives away distress and sweetens my memory. The world trembles.” - Isabel Allende

54. “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

55. “In her dance, she controlled the bright paper birds with invisible wires and threads. She played the human: heavy, tied to earth. Her dances weren't pretty or delightful, but they were magical, [...] They called her a dancer and a puppeteer and an artist. They might have called her a witch, and not the good kind either.” - Katherine Catmull

56. “Why people wanted to dance whenever it got dark was beyond him. Somehow, the two seemed to go together, like bees and flowers, or flies and dung. Darkness and dancing.” - Terry Goodkind

57. “I like the way he danced. And then I like the way we danced together.” - Anita Diamant

58. “Time goes by at the speed of lifeSlower than a slow danceon a hot summer nightFaster than the skin breakson the edge of a knifeAnd we just go on at the speed of life” - Jude Cole

59. “Sam and I had lived together for many months at this point, and I thought I’d gotten to know her pretty well. I realized I was wrong after watching her dance. I can’t really describe it any better than that I felt like I was taking a peek at someone else’s soul. Not much ever makes me feel like that.” - Darren McKeeman

60. “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

61. “He danced the way he made love, with passion and tenderness and spirit, communicating with hands and eyes the most subtle messages, tenderly making up for Lila's awkwardness. In his lashes and his hair, mist clung in tiny diamond drops. She could not take her eyes from him.” - Ruth Wind

62. “I've done tangos with men who thought my ass was a squeaky toy.” - Seanan McGuire

63. “Because if we're on the road to hell, we're going to dance the whole damn way and give them something to talk about when we're gone.” - Deanna Raybourn

64. “I can't dance, remember?" I whispered."It's just a tango. It is like sex, except with clothes on." Then, squeezing me closer: "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot, you do not know how to do that either.” - Joe Schreiber

65. “We act as a conduit for the observers’ unexpressed desires, the silent appreciation they may contain for anything; a lover, a river, a building even” - Guy Mankowski