My youngest daughter’s senior dance recital is this week. She’s been taking classes for 15 years, which means 15 recitals, several dozen costumes, hundreds of hours in the dance studio…and countless lessons learned.

For those who love dance, there’s something that wells up inside – not simply a desire to dance, but a need to dance. Many vocalists, musicians, writers and artists experience something similar. Today I’m sharing several inspiring quotes about dance. If dancing isn’t your passion, find what inspires you. Then seek and respond today.

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)

I believe that we learn by practice.  Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same.  In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one’s being, a satisfaction of spirit.  One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God.  Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire.  Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired. (Martha Graham)

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 single fleeting moment when you feel alive. (Merce Cunningham)

I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to to dance better than myself. (Mikhail Baryshnikov)

Never dance in a puddle when there’s a hole in your shoe (it’s always best to take your shoes off first). (Rhodes)

The good news is that Christ frees us from the need to obnoxiously focus on our goodness, our commitment, and our correctness. Religious has made us obsessive almost beyond endurance. Jesus invited us to a dance…and we’ve turned in into a march of soldiers, always checking to see if we’re doing it right and are in step and in line with the other soldiers. We know a dance would be more fun, but we believe we must go through hell to get to heaven, so we keep marching. (Steve Brown)

(My daughter’s favorite…) Those who say sunshine brings happiness have never danced in the rain. (Author Unknown)

Each Sunday on the Pure Purpose blog, I feature This Week’s 7, a simple list about an everyday topic, giving you ideas and encouragement. Thanks for joining me today!