75 Dance Quotes to Inspire You to Get Up and Move

Woman dancing on bed

Dancing is an art, a sport and a cathartic activity all in one. We've all likely heard the quote about dancing like nobody's watching, but that can be easier said than done—especially if you don't fancy yourself to be the most graceful dancer. One of the most beautiful aspects of dancing, however, is allowing your body to move however it feels called. 

Parade compiled this list of dance quotes to inspire you to get on your dancing shoes and just move! As the late American dancer and choreographer, Martha Graham, said, "Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion."

Dance, as an art form, transcends mere physical activity; it is a celebration of the human spirit's boundless capacity for creativity and connection. We all have a dancer within us, waiting to be released. Keep reading for 75 dance quotes to get you out of your head and into your body. 

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75 Dance Quotes

1. "The job of feet is walking, but their hobby is dancing." –Amit Kalantri

2. "Dancers are made, not born." –Mikhail Baryshnikov

3. "The body says what the words cannot." –Martha Graham

4. "To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love." –Jane Austen

5. "Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye, but the dance lives on." –Michael Jackson

6. "It takes an athlete to dance, but an artist to be a dancer." –Shanna LeFleur

7. "Take more chances, dance more dances." –Unknown

8. "When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way." –Wayne Dyer

9. "Dance is a language beyond words, expressing that for which we have no words." –Jennifer De Leon

10. "The truest expression of a people is in its dance and its music. Bodies never lie." –Agnes de Mille

11. "Get up off of that thing. Dance and you’ll feel better." –James Brown

12. "To watch someone dance is to hear their heart speak." –Unknown 

13. "Dancing is surely the most basic of relevant of all forms of expression. Nothing else can so effectively give outward form to an inner experience." –Lyall Watson

14. "There are shortcuts to happiness and dancing is one of them." –Vicki Baum

15. "Don't let people discourage you. Just fluff out your tutu and dance away." –Unknown

16. "Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion." –Martha Graham

17. "You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls." —Merce Cunningham

18. "I do not try to dance better than anybody else. I only try to dance better than myself." –Unknown

19. "If you stumble, make it part of the dance." –Unknown

20. "Life is short and there will always be dirty dishes, so let's dance." –James Howe

21. "Dancing faces you towards Heaven, whichever direction you turn." –Terri Guillemets

22. "One who expresses one’s self through dance is a dancer. One who expresses one’s self through a dancer is a dance teacher." –Unknown

23. "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

24. "Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world." –Voltaire

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25. "Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair." –Susan Polis Schutz

26. "She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar." –Janet Fitch

27. "Dance is your pulse, your heartbeat, your breathing. It’s the rhythm of your life. It’s the expression in time and movement, in happiness, joy, sadness and envy." — Jacques d’Amboise"

28. "The truest expression of a people is in its dance and its music. Bodies never lie." — Agnes de Mille

29. "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." –Friedrich Nietzsche

30. "Every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and dance." –Oprah Winfrey

31. "Dancing is like dreaming with your feet." –Constanze Mozart

32. "Dance first. Think later. It's the natural order." –Samuel Beckett

33. "Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made." –Ted Shawn

34. "The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs." –Charles Baudelaire

35. "Dance is the timeless interpretation of life." –Shah Asad Rizvi

36. "Dance is the poetic baring of the soul through motion." –Scott Nilsson

37. "Dance is the joy of movement and the heart of life." –Unknown

38. "Dance is the hidden language of the soul." –Martha Graham

39. "To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful." –Agnes De Mille

40. "The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word." –Mata Hari

41. "Dancing is like bank robbery; it takes split-second timing." –Twyla Tharp

42. "Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free." – Rumi

43. "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." –Alan Watts

44. "Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room." –Kurt Vonnegut

45. "The most essential thing in dance discipline is devotion." –Merce Cunningham

46. "Dancing is creating a sculpture that is visible only for a moment." –Erol Ozan

47. "Learn the craft of knowing how to open your heart and to turn on your creativity. There’s a light inside of you." –Judith Jamison

48. "Life is short, and there's too much time to dance." –Hugh Wiley

49. "Dance is art; paint your dream and follow it." –Steven Thompson

50. "Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion." –Martha Graham

51. "Dance enables you to find yourself and lose yourself at the same time." –Unknown

52. "Dancers are the athletes of God." –Albert Einstein

53. "In a society that worships love, freedom and beauty, dance is sacred. It is a prayer for the future, a remembrance of the past and a joyful exclamation of thanks for the present." –Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

54. "All I ever needed was the music and the mirror." –A Chorus Line

55. "Dancing is surely the most basic and relevant of all forms of expression. Nothing else can so effectively give outward form to an inner experience." –Lyall Watson

56. "Dancing with the feet is one thing, but dancing with the heart is another." – Unknown

57. "Hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon." –Edward Lear

58. "We can’t choose the music that life gives us, but we can choose how to dance to it." –Unknown

59. "I don’t want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance." –George Balanchine

60. "We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance." –Japanese Proverb

61. "Dancing is like a shower: one wrong turn and you’re in hot water!" –Mad Magazine

62. "There is something so rewarding about dancing. It’s almost spiritual – you let loose, you feel free, you get endorphins from the exercise." –Julianne Hough

63. "Dance is an art in space and time. The object of the dancer is to obliterate that." – Merce Cunningham

64. "Technical perfection is insufficient. It is an orphan without the true soul of the dancer." –Sylvie Guillem

65. "Dance form is logical, but it is all in the realm of feeling, sensitivity and imagination." –Doris Humphrey

66. "This search for what you want is like tracking something that doesn’t want to be tracked. It takes time to get a dance right, to create something memorable." –Fred Astaire

67. "Dance is certainly a sport, and they are phenomenal athletes, and they’re also artists." –Neve Campbell

68. "Even today when I rehearse, I give it everything that I’ve got. If I’m in a performance and the lights go out, I glow in the dark. When you’re working before an audience, you have to make them feel like they can touch you. That’s the dancer within, reaching out." –Mitzi Gaynor

69. "Every dance you make belongs to you. It is part of your collection. When you think of it like that, you’ll want to make your next routine the best you’ve ever made!" –Torron-Lee Dewar

70. "I see dance being used as communication between body and soul, to express what it too deep to find for words." –Ruth St. Denis

71. "When I dance, I forget everything else and just feel completely happy." –Katherine Jenkins

72. "I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be." –Martha Graham

73. "Any kind of dancing is better than no dancing at all." –Lynda Barr

74. "I love to dance because I was scared to speak. When I was moving, I could feel." – Pina Bausch

75. "If you want to release your aggression, get up and dance." –Chuck Berry

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