We look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life. This is the function of the American dance.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
Dance is the hidden language of the soul.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined; no sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet to chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
You can be anything you want to be, if you only believe with sufficient conviction and act in accordance with your faith; for whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.
—Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American Author, Journalist, Attorney, Lecturer
A nice definition of an awakened person: a person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within.
—Anthony de Mello (1931–87) Indian-born American Theologian
On with the dance, let joy be unconfined is my motto, whether there’s a dance to dance or any joy to unconfine.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The only dance masters I could have were Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Walt Whitman and Nietzsche.
—Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American Dancer, Choreographer
We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.
—Japanese Proverb
The real American type can never be a ballet dancer. The legs are too long, the body too supple and the spirit too free for this school of affected grace and toe walking.
—Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American Dancer, Choreographer
I just put my feet in the air and move them around.
—Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American Actor, Film Personality, Theater Personality, Choreographer
Dancers are the messengers of the gods.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
They who love dancing too much seem to have more brains in their feet than in their head.
—Terence (c.195–159 BCE) Roman Comic Dramatist
Great dancers are not great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
Your automatic creative mechanism is teleological. That is, it operates in terms of goals and end results. Once you give it a definite goal to achieve, you can depend upon its automatic guidance system to take you to that goal much better than “you” ever could by conscious thought. “You” supply the goal by thinking in terms of end results. Your automatic mechanism then supplies the means whereby.
—Maxwell Maltz (1899–1975) American Surgeon, Motivational Writer
Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
Nothing is more revealing than movement.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.
—Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American Dancer, Choreographer
Believe me, you can have anything you want–and in abundance-when you learn to tune into the power within, an infinitely greater power than electricity, a power you have had from the beginning.
—Roger McDonald (b.1941) Australian Novelist, Poet, Screenwriter, Writer