Some days you’re not in the mood to dance, which is a terrible way to feel, but a few dance quotes are just the thing to get you moving. By a few, we of course mean 100, as we’ve compiled here. If something’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing!

Short Dance Quotes

If you’re in a rush before dance class, these short and to-the-point quotes should put you in the mood to move.

  1. “Forget your troubles and dance.” –Bob Marley
  2. “Dance and you’ll feel better.” –James Brown
  3. “Ballet is a dance executed by the human soul.” –Alexander Pushkin
  4. “You dance love, and you dance joy, and you dance dreams.” –Gene Kelly
  5. “Dance every performance as if it were your last.” —Erik Bruhn
  6. “To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak.” —Indian Proverb
  7. “To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.” —Jane Austen
  8. “The job of feet is walking, but their hobby is dancing.” —Amit Kalantri
  9. “Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.” —Samuel Beckett
  10. “The body says what words cannot.” —Martha Graham
  11. “When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you.” — Coelho
  12. “Dancing is silent poetry.” —Simonides
  13. “The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.” –Martha Graham
  14. “When you feel like quitting, think about why you started.” –Unknown
  15. “Feet’s job is to walk, but their passion is dancing.” –Priyanshu Singh
  16. “Some of my happiest moments have been dancing.” –Claire Danes
  17. “Dancing is the poetry of the foot.”  —John Dryden
  18. “Do it big, do it right, and do it with style.” —Fred Astaire
  19. “Dance for yourself. If someone understands, good. If not, no matter.” —Louis Horst
  20. “He who cannot dance puts the blame on the floor.” —Hindu Proverb
  21. “There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them.” —Vicki Baum
  22. “Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!”  —Constanze Mozart
  23. “The most essential thing in dance discipline is devotion.” —Merce Cunningham

Dance Quotes By Famous Dancers

Everyone on this list is great in some way, but the best dancers can articulate just what it means to be a dancer.

  1. “Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.” –Martha Graham
  2. “I’m going to tap until I can’t – I’ll be so old, all I can do is walk out from the wings to stage centre. But I’ll be there.” –Gregory Hines
  3. “Dance is like wine; it matures with every performance.” –Alarmel Valli
  4. “Dance is the purest expression of every emotion, earthly and spiritual.” –Anna Pavlova
  5. “You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you.” — Isadora Duncan, American dancer known as the “Mother of Modern Dance”
  6. “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, modern dance choreographer
  7. “I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.” —Mikhail Baryshnikov, Russian-American dancer and choreographer
  8. “I may not be there yet, but I am closer than I was yesterday.” —Misty Copeland, first African American female principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre
  9. “The truest expression of a people is in its dance and its music. Bodies never lie.”  —Agnes de Mille, American dancer and choreographer
  10. “Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye, but the dance lives on.” —Michael Jackson, pop singer and dancer
  11. “When I dance, I forget everything else and just feel completely happy.” – Katherine Jenkins
  12. “Dance is certainly a sport, and they are phenomenal athletes, and they’re also artists.” – Neve Campbell, actor
  13. “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, American ballet dancer and choreographer
  14. “Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.” — Martha Graham, modern dancer and choreographer
  15. “I have no desire to prove anything by dancing…I just dance.” — Fred Astaire, actor/dancer
  16. “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, American dancer/choreographer
  17. “The moment is everything. Don’t think about tomorrow; don’t think about yesterday: think about exactly what you’re doing right now and live it and dance it and breath it and be it.” — Wendy Whelan, American ballet dancer
  18. “There’s nothing wrong with fear; the only mistake is to let it stop you in your tracks.” —  Twyla Tharp, dancer, choreographer, and author
  19. “Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art.” — Margot Fonteyn, English ballerina
  20. “To follow, without halt, one aim: There’s the secret of success.” — Anna Pavlova, Russian prima ballerina
  21. “If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it” ―Isadora Duncan

Dance School Quotes

We appreciate dance schools, teachers and the classes that made us the dancers we are today.

  1. “Behind every dancer who believes in themselves is a teacher who believed in them first.” –Unknown
  2. “What seems so hard now will someday be your warm up.” –Unknown
  3. “Friends that dance together, stay together.” – Unknown
  4. “May all your shuffle hop steps dance lightly on your SOLE. And you never experience a CRAMP in your ROLL.” –Laurie Johnson
  5. “A dance teacher helps her students find the song in their heart the beat in their feet and a passion for life.” – Unknown
  6. “An amazing dance teacher is hard to find difficult to part with & impossible to forget.” – Unknown
  7. 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

Obscure Dance Quotes

This short list contains those quotes that are open to interpretation or just a little bizarre.

  1. “Dance lightly with life.” –Unknown
  2. “When your knowledge increases over time, you learn to dance in your mind.” –Debasish Mridha
  3. “You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?” – Joker
  4. “No standing. Only dancing.” –Unknown

Inspirational Dance Quotes

Okay, it’s time to get in the spirit. If these don’t get you into your dancing shoes, nothing will.

  1. “I dance because there’s no greater feeling in the world than moving a piece of music and letting the rest of the world disappear.” – Unknown
  2. “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
  3. “Don’t let people discourage you. Just fluff out your tutu and dance away.” –Unknown
  4. “There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good.” –Edwin Denby
  5. “If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.” –Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
  6. “Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we’re here we should dance.” –Jeanne Stein
  7. “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” –Friedrich Nietzsche
  8. “Dancing is creating a sculpture that is visible only for a moment.” –Erol Ozan
  9. “When you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.” –Lee Ann Womack
  10. “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” –Emma Goldman
  11. “Let us dance in the sun, wearing wildflowers in our hair…” –Susan polis Schutz
  12. “Love is a lot like dancing; you just surrender to the music. –Pierce Brosnan
  13. “Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong.” – Unknown
  14. “Dance is art; paint your dream and follow it.” —Steven Thompson
  15. “Dance enables you to find yourself and yourself at the same time.” — Unknown
  16. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” —C.S. Lewis
  17. “We can’t choose the music that life gives us, but we can choose how to dance to it.” — Unknown
  18. “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
  19. “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
  20. “Dancers are the athletes of God.” —Albert Einstein
  21. “Hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon.” —Edward Lear
  22. “Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” —Friedrich Nietzsche
  23. “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
  24. “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
  25. “All I ever needed was the music and the mirror.” —A Chorus Line
  26. “Dancing with the feet is one thing, but dancing with the heart is another.” —Unknown
  27. “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
  28. “Follow your passion. Find that something that makes you want to work at it. Work hard. Nothing comes without hard work.” —Tomas Schramek
  29. “I don’t want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance.” —George Balanchine
  30. “The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word.” – Mata Hari

Funny Dance Quotes

Dance is serious, but it can be funny.

  1. “Dancing is like a shower: one wrong turn and you’re in hot water!” —Mad Magazine
  2. “Dancing is the art of getting your feet out of the way faster than your partner can step on them.” – Unknown
  3. “Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.” – Unknown
  4. “Dancing is like bank robbery. It takes split-second timing.” —Twyla Tharp
  5. “After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.” —Ann Richards
  6. “The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing.” – James Brown
  7. “’One more time’ is always a lie.” –Unknown
  8. “Any kind of dancing is better than no dancing at all.” –Lynda Barr
  9. “Trust me, you can dance.” – Vodka
  10. “Those who can’t dance say the music is no good.” —Jamaican Proverb
  11. “Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but the living room…” —Kurt Vonnegut
  12. “We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.” — Japanese Proverb
  13. “Bleeding feet will bond us.” —Liza Minelli
  14. “Dance is a little insanity that does us all good.” —Edward Demby
  15. “Dancing is like breathing — missing a day doing either is very bad.” —Vera Ellen

Have we missed any obvious or brilliant ones? Let us know! We would love to hear from you. At the very least, we hope this compilation got your toe tapping or your hips moving.