It takes time to get a dance right, to create something memorable.
Fred AstaireRead
For ballroom dancing, remember that your partners have their own distinctive styles also. Cultivate flexibility. Be able to adapt your style to that of your partner. In doing so, you are not surrendering your individuality, but blending it with that of your partner.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Embrace the unique styles of others while maintaining your individuality in partnership.
This quote emphasizes the importance of flexibility and adaptability in relationships, particularly in the context of partnership, such as in ballroom dancing. It suggests that while it is crucial to embrace and learn from the distinctive styles of others, one should not lose their own identity; instead, they should blend their individuality with that of their partners to create harmony.
Themes
FlexibilityAdaptabilityPartnershipIndividualityHarmony
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about teamwork at a company retreat.
More from Fred Astaire
All quotes →Some people seem to think that good dancers are born, but all the good dancers I have known are taught or trained.
Fred AstaireRead
Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.
Fred AstaireRead
I have no desire to prove anything by dancing. I have never used it as an outlet or a means of expressing myself. I just dance. I just put my feet in the air and move them around.
Fred AstaireRead
I inherited the knowledge that sometimes (talents) not only skip a generation, but sometimes run screaming from it. Ironically, it was the singing non-ability that helped feed my love of laughter.
Fred AstaireRead
Either the camera will dance, or I will.
Fred AstaireRead
Similar quotes
Let him be great, and love shall follow him. Nothing is more deeply punished than the neglect of the affinities by which alone society should be formed, and the insane levity of choosing associates by others eyes.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
That her relationship with him was like being content in a house but always sitting by the window and looking out
Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieRead
Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.
George Bernard ShawRead
Refecting on the high divorce rate in America as contrasted with England "American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers
W. Somerset MaughamRead
We need to say that women have sex, have abortions, are at peace with the decision, and move on with their lives. We need to say that is their right, and, moreover, it's good for everyone that they have this right: The whole society benefits when motherhood is voluntary.
Katha PollittRead
The UK is an extraordinary partner for America and a force for good in an unstable world. I hope it remains strong, robust and united.
Barack ObamaRead