WIST Quotations

Watts, Alan -- The Wisdom of Insecurity, ch. 7 “The Transformation of Life” (1951)

Dave — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 21:30:30 +0000

The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance. Like music, also, it is fulfilled in each moment of the course. You do not play a sonata in order to reach the final chord, and if the meaning of things were simply in ends, composers would write nothing but finales.

Alan Watts (1915–1973) Anglo-American philosopher, writer
The Wisdom of Insecurity, ch. 7 “The Transformation of Life” (1951)

Baudelaire, Charles -- “La Fanfarlo,” Bulletin de la Société des Gens de Lettres (1847-01) [tr. MacKenzie (2008)]

Dave — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 17:20:40 +0000

Dance can reveal all that is mysterious in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dance is poetry with arms and legs; it is matter — gracious, terrible, animated — embellished by movements.

[La danse peut révéler tout ce que la musique recèle de mystérieux, et elle a de plus le mérite d’être humaine et palpable. La danse, c’est la poésie avec des bras et des jambes, c’est la matière, gracieuse et terrible, animée, embellie par le mouvement.]

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet, essayist, art critic
“La Fanfarlo,” Bulletin de la Société des Gens de Lettres (1847-01) [tr. MacKenzie (2008)]

(Source (French)). Other translations:

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. It is matter, graceful and terrible, animated and embellished by movement.
[tr. Boyd (1986)]

Dance can reveal all the mystery that music hides, and it has the further merit of being human and palpable. Dance is poetry with arms and legs, it’s matter, gracious and terrible, animated and embellished by movement.
[tr. Lloyd (1991)]

Euripides -- Bacchæ [Βάκχαι], l. 862ff, Strophe 1 [Chorus/Χορός] (405 BC) [tr. Way (1898)]

Dave — Tue, 02 May 2023 14:42:56 +0000

Ah, shall my white feet in the dances gleam
The livelong night again? Ah, shall I there
Float through the Bacchanal’s ecstatic dream,
Tossing my neck into the dewy air? —
Like to a fawn that gambols mid delight
Of pastures green.

[ἆρ᾽ ἐν παννυχίοις χοροῖς
θήσω ποτὲ λευκὸν
πόδ᾽ ἀναβακχεύουσα, δέραν
865εἰς αἰθέρα δροσερὸν ῥίπτουσ᾽,
ὡς νεβρὸς χλοεραῖς ἐμπαί-
ζουσα λείμακος ἡδοναῖς]

Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Bacchæ [Βάκχαι], l. 862ff, Strophe 1 [Chorus/Χορός] (405 BC) [tr. Way (1898)]

(Source (Greek)). Other translations:

When shall I join the midnight dance,
With agile step my comrades lead,
And as our festive choirs advance
Triumphant over enaml'd mead,
My heaving bosom to the dewy gale
Expand, high bounding like a fawn
Who gambols o'er the verdant lawn.
[tr. Wodhull (1809)]

Shall I move my white foot in the night-long dance, aroused to a frenzy, throwing my head to the dewy air, like a fawn sporting in the green pleasures of the meadow.
[tr. Buckley (1850)]

O when, through the long night,
With fleet foot glancing white,
Shall I go dancing in my revelry,
My neck cast back, and bare
Unto the dewy air,
Like sportive fawn in the green meadow's glee?
[tr. Milman (1865)]

Then shall it be that all night long
My feet shall hurry through the dance,
Then shall I in new jollity
Toss to the dewy breeze my neck,
As jocund as the tender fawn
Who sports athwart the grassy mead.
[tr. Rogers (1872), l. 823ff]

Will this white foot e’er join the night-long dance? what time in Bacchic ecstasy I toss my neck to heaven’s dewy breath, like a fawn, that gambols ’mid the meadow’s green delights.
[tr. Coleridge (1891)]

Will they ever come to me, ever again,
The long long dances,
On through the dark till the dim stars wane?
Shall I feel the dew on my throat, and the stream
Of wind in my hair? Shall our white feet gleam
In the dim expanses?
Oh, feet of a fawn to the greenwood fled,
Alone in the grass and the loveliness.
[tr. Murray (1902)]

When shall I dance once more
with bare feet the all-night dances,
tossing my head for joy
in the damp air, in the dew,
as a running fawn might frisk
for the green joy of the wide fields.
[tr. Arrowsmith (1960)]

Shall I in night-long dances
ever set white
foot in bacchic celebration, hurling
my throat to the dewy air of heaven,
like a fawn playing in the green
pleasures of a meadow?
[tr. Kirk (1970)]

O for long nights of worship, gay
With the pale gleam of dancing feet,
With head tossed high to the dewy air --
Pleasure mysterious and sweet!
O for the joy of a fawn at play
In the fragrant meadow's green delight.
[tr. Vellacott (1973)]

I seek release to as calm
of green hills, white thighs
Flashing in the grass
The dew-soaked air kissing my throat.
[...]
But gently, as the dance of the young deer, swathed
In emerald meadow.
[tr. Soyinka (1973)]

In the nocturnal choruses
shall I ever set my stepping
in bacchanti sing, to toss my throat into the dewy sky?
like a frolicking fawn in the greening joy of the meadowland?
[tr. Neuburg (1988)]

When, oh when,
in an all-night trance
shall I dance again,
bare feet flashing, head rushing
through the coolness of leaves,
like a fawn that frolics
in the green delights of the forest.
[tr. Cacoyannis (1982)]

Will I set my bare foot
Then in dancing vigils
Rousing bacchic frenzy,
Shake my throat in the dewy air,
Like a fawn in green joy
Sporting in a meadow?
[tr. Blessington (1993)]

Shall I ever move
my white feet in the all-night dances
breaking forth into Bacchic frenzy
tossing my neck back
into the dewy air
like a fawn sporting amid the green delights of the meadow?
[tr. Esposito (1998)]

To dance the long night!
Shall I ever set my white foot
so, to worship Bacchus?
Toss my neck to the dewy skies
as a young fawn frisks
in green delight of pasture?
[tr. Woodruff (1999)]

Will I ever celebrate
All night with white foot
Flashing in the Bakkhic dance?
Well I ever fling back
My head and let the air
Of heaven touch my throat
With dew, like a fawn at play
In the green joy of meadows?
[tr. Gibbons/Segal (2000), l. 884ff]

Shall I ever in the nightlong dances
move my white feet
in ecstasy? Shall I toss
my head to the dewy heaven
like a fawn that plays
amid green meadow delights?
[tr. Kovacs (2002)]

Soon shall we know again
The night-long dance,
Silver moonlit feet,
Head, in bliss, flung back
To the icy air.
A fawn at play in meadows.
[tr. Teevan (2002)]

I wish!
I wish that one day I’d be able to take part in the Bacchic dances, those all night dances of joy!
I wish that one day I’d be able to see my white feet kick high to the rhythm of those dances!
And
I wish that one day I could rush with my fawn skin through the cool breeze like a fawn does.
[tr. Theodoridis (2005)]

Shall I ever in nightlong dances
Shake my fair white foot

in Bacchus' madness, tossing my
Hair to the nightwind of heav'n?
Like a fawn frolicking races
through green meadow pastures ....
[tr. Valerie (2005)]

O when will I be dancing,
leaping barefoot through the night,
flinging back my head in ecstasy,
in the clear, cold, dew-fresh air --
like a playful fawn celebrating
its green joy across the meadows.
[tr. Johnston (2008), l. 1060ff]

Shall I dance them again, the nightlong dances?
Dance again with bare feet in the dew?
Shall I toss my head and skip through the open fields
as a fawn slipped free ...?
[tr. Robertson (2014)]

Am I to dance?
To lift my feet the whole night through
with the frenzy of a god inside me?
Shall I bare my throat to the dewy air
like a fawn at play in the meadow,
where joy is green and wide?
[tr. Pauly (2019)]

Shall I soon be free again to dance, to toss my head all night in the dew-filled air? Like a fawn [...] playing in the green joy of a meadow.
[tr. Behr/Foster (2019)]

Shall I ever, in choruses that last all night long,
set in motion my gleaming white
foot in a Bacchic revel as I thrust my throat
toward the upper air wet with dew, yes, thrusting it forward.
-- just like a fawn playfully
skipping around in the green delights of a meadow
[tr. Buckley/Sens/Nagy (2020)]

Baudelaire, Charles -- Les Fleurs du Mal [The Flowers of Evil], Part 1, #28 “Avec ses vêtements ondoyants et nacrés,” st. 1 (1857) [tr. Campbell (1952)]

Dave — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 23:50:59 +0000

With waving opalescence in her gown,
Even when she walks along, you think she’s dancing.
Like those long snakes which charmers, while entrancing,
Wave with their wands, in cadence, up and down.

[Avec ses vêtements ondoyants et nacrés,
Même quand elle marche on croirait qu’elle danse,
Comme ces longs serpents que les jongleurs sacrés
Au bout de leurs bâtons agitent en cadence.]

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet, essayist, art critic
Les Fleurs du Mal [The Flowers of Evil], Part 1, #28 “Avec ses vêtements ondoyants et nacrés,” st. 1 (1857) [tr. Campbell (1952)]

(Source (French)). Other translations:

Robed in a silken robe that shines and shakes,
She seems to dance whenever she treads the sod,
Like the long serpent that a fakir makes
Dance to the waving cadence of a rod.
[tr. Sturm (1905)]

With pearly robes that wave within the wind,
Even when she walks, she seems to dance,
Like swaying serpents round those wands entwined
Which fakirs wave in rhythmic elegance.
[tr. Scott (1909)]

with all her undulant pearly draperies,
she moves in measures lovelier than a dance,
as in the fakirs' Indian sorceries
tall cobras 'neath a moving rod advance
[tr. Shanks (1931)]

With her pearly, undulating dresses,
Even when she's walking, she seems to be dancing
Like those long snakes which the holy fakirs
Set swaying in cadence on the end of their staffs.
[tr. Aggeler (1954)]

With her dresses undulating, pearly,
Even walking one would think her dancing,
Like those long serpents which holy charmers
Move in harmony at the tips of their batons.
[tr. Wagner (1974)]

Even when she walks she seems to dance!
Her garments writhe and glisten like long snakes
obedient to the rhythm of the wands
by which a fakir wakens them to grace.
[tr. Howard (1982)]

With her undulating, iridescent clothes, even when she walks you would think she is dancing, like those long snakes that sacred jugglers shake rhythmically on the ends of their sticks.
[tr. Clark (1995), #17]

She doesn’t walk; she rather dances through salons
Within her buoyant gowns of glittering, silver nacre,
Curling like the snake of a turbaned Hindu fakir,
Unrolled from in between his undulant batons.
[tr. Eriksson]

Even when she walks one would believe that she dances.
[Common rendering]

Brilliant, Ashleigh -- Pot-Shots, #4110

Dave — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:34:53 +0000

At the highest level of performance, there is no difference between the dancer and the dance.

Ashleigh Brilliant (b. 1933) Anglo-American epigramist, aphorist, cartoonist
Pot-Shots, #4110

Lewis, Charlton Miner -- Gawayne and the Green Knight, Canto 2 “Elfinhart” (1903)

Dave — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 21:09:56 +0000

But she pursued them through their tangled lair
And caught them, and put fire-flies in their hair;
And then they all joined hands, and round and round
They danced a morris on the moonlit ground.

Charlton Miner Lewis (1866–1923) American scholar of English literature, author
Gawayne and the Green Knight, Canto 2 “Elfinhart” (1903)

Twain, Mark -- Story (1892), The American Claimant, ch. 2 [Col. Sellers]

Dave — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:53:07 +0000

But banish care, it’s no time for it now — on with the dance, let joy be unconfined is my motto, whether there’s any dance to dance; or any joy to unconfine — you’ll be the healthier for it every time, — every time, Washington — it’s my experience, and I’ve seen a good deal of this world.

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Story (1892), The American Claimant, ch. 2 [Col. Sellers]

The Colonel is riffing from Byron (1818).

Byron, George Gordon, Lord -- Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 3, st. 22 (1818)

Dave — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:51:16 +0000

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.

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824) English poet
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 3, st. 22 (1818)

Carlin, George -- Book (1997), Brain Droppings, “Short Takes (Part 1)”

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Those who dance are considered insane by those who can’t hear the music.

George Carlin (1937–2008) American comedian
Book (1997), Brain Droppings, “Short Takes (Part 1)”

This phrase, or its meaning, pre-dates Carlin. Carlin himself attributes it to "Anon." in the epigraph of his next book, Napalm and Silly Putty (2001).

A version of it is often misattributed to Friedrich Nietzsche in this English form:

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

While this English quotation does show up back into the 19th Century, there is no evidence that Nietzsche said it.

For more discussion, see:

The phrase and its meaning are related to Thoreau's metaphor of "marching to the beat of a different drummer."

Barry, Dave -- “25 Things I Have Learned In 50 Years,” #25 (1997)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.

Dave Barry (b. 1947) American humorist, author, columnist
“25 Things I Have Learned In 50 Years,” #25 (1997)