Words That Inspire

Describing dance is one of the hardest things in the world to do. But in the right hands, dance’s poetry has a singular power to inspire beautiful, memorable words.

Here are a few of my favorite dance quotes. They’re the sayings I look to on bad days, when I’m feeling depressed or stuck or unmotivated. And they never fail to pull me out of a slump.

What quotes would you add to the list?

“The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie.” -choreographer Agnes de Mille

“Dancers are the messengers of the gods.”  -choreographer Martha Graham

“Dancing: the vertical expression of a horizontal desire legalized by music.”  -writer George Bernard Shaw

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

“There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good.”  -dance critic Edwin Denby

“Dancers are instruments, like a piano the choreographer plays.”  -choreographer George Balanchine

“To dance is to be out of yourself.  Larger, more beautiful, more powerful.”  -Agnes de Mille

“Dancing can reveal all the mystery that music conceals.” -poet Charles Baudelaire