Bad-mouth Quotes

Duvet

Member
I do not dance! I shall say more: I detest dancing – I abhor it from the depths of my soul.
Carlo Collodi, the author of Pinocchio (1861)
 

Aniseteph

New member
This thread makes this song play in my head, so...
[video=youtube_share;6CTR3d2Ly80]http://youtu.be/6CTR3d2Ly80[/video]

Stephen Fry is on TV right now talking about being bipolar. If dancing is an affliction it is a happier one than a cocaine habit.

Also I found a very old video of him in a sketch about embarrassing Morris dancers which probably counts as dance aversion therapy.
 

Duvet

Member
Thanks Anisteph. I knew the song, but I hadn't seen the routine that went with it. Funny how she begs and coaxes him to dance with her to make her happy and because he's sooo charming, and when he finally does dance she fades into the background and gets forgotten while he takes up the whole floor and becomes a veritable show-off. Sound familiar to anyone? :)
 
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Duvet

Member
I have no desire to prove anything by it [dancing]. I have never used it as an outlet or a means of expressing myself..
Fred Astaire, Steps in Time (1959)

Mr. Astaire is the nearest approach we are ever likely to have to a human Mickey Mouse; he might have been drawn by Mr. Walt Disney, with his quick physical wit, his incredible agility.
Graham Greene , The Spectator (1936)

[Mr. Llewellyn believed that one should] leave eccentric dancing to the professionals. A man, he held, is either Fred Astaire or he is not Fred Astaire, and if he is not Fred Astaire he should not carry on like him.
P.G. Wodehouse, Bachelors Anonymous (1973)
 

Duvet

Member
The north side of the graveyard was set apart for unbaptized infants and executed criminals, and it was permitted the people to dance or play tennis in that part.
M D Conway – Demonology and Devil Lore (1879)

Which quote, through the wonders of internet surfing, led me to this video;

[video=youtube;AO3IQtW8Dlc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO3IQtW8Dlc[/video]
 

Duvet

Member
[Socrates said] “Don’t you know that just the other day Charmides here caught me dancing early in the morning?” “Indeed I did,” said Charmides, “and at first I was dumbfounded and feared that you were going completely mad.”
Xenophon - Symposium (c.367 BC)
 

Greek Bonfire

Well-known member
Oh please! Cicero was eloquent with his speech but he wasn't much for getting off of his culo, and others who trash it just don't know how and won't take the time to learn. Darwin was known to be depressed a lot - maybe if he started dancing he may have gotten rid of the blues, started watching new styles of dance and stopped watching bugs and reptiles so much!
 

Duvet

Member
I had to laugh at this one;

Line dancing is as sinful as any other type of dancing, with its sexual gestures and touching. It is an incitement to lust.
Dr. Ian Paisley - Burning Bush magazine (May 2001)

Dr. Paisley would have been sorely disappointed regarding the lascivious potential of line dancing if he'd ever bothered to try it at his local town hall. Either that, or I'm going to the wrong classes!
 

Duvet

Member
"We do not quarrel with dancing in itself, captain; it is forbidden because it leads to immorality, which troubles the peace of the countryside and corrupts its manners.”
Honore Balzac - the Country Doctor (1833)
 

Ariadne

Well-known member
Dance has been considered a grave sin by church, particularly the dance done by women. Remember that witchhunt has a justification that women-witches gather and dance in the nights under moonlight.
That depends on the church and the time period. My own has always sponsored public dances and encouraged socialization at them. Here's the most negative quote from a leader on the subject I could find:


  • There certainly can be no harm in dancing, in and of itself, as an abstract principle, but like all other athletic exercises, it has a tendency to invigorate the system and to promote health . . . Therefore, looking at dancing merely as an athletic exercise, or as something having a tendency to add to the grace and dignity of man, by enabling him to have a more easy and graceful attitude, certainly no one could object to it . . . As an abstract principle . . . we have no objections to it; but when it leads people into bad complacency and causes them to keep untimely hours, it has a tendency to enervate and weaken the system, and lead to profligate and intemperate habits. And so far as it does this, so far is it injurious to society, and corrupting the morals of youth. -John Taylor

My mother told me about how when she was a youth there was one every Saturday night and how she always went and danced the whole time no matter how much her feet hurt. She was a great example. :D

Now I don't see how you can flirt while line dancing but my father admitted that he loved square dancing because it was so easy to flirt with a girl without anyone else knowing.
 

Shanazel

Moderator
There were a lot of very strict Southern Baptists where I grew up. I remember feeling sorry for the kids who sat and watched during PE while the rest of us learned folk dances. My husband grew up in a religion that didn't allow dancing or cards or any number of activities. He does not, thank goodness, adhere to those beliefs. Can't imagine what life would be without him and I'd never have married someone who disapproved of me dancing.
 

Duvet

Member
"Dancing begets warmth, which is the parent of wantonness. It is, Sir, the great grandfather of cuckoldom."
Henry Fielding - Love in Several Masques (1728)
 

Duvet

Member
"…God has not given us our feet to use in a shameful way but in order that we may walk in decency, and not that we should dance like camels. For even as dancing camels make an unpleasant spectacle, much more so do women."
John Chrysostom - Homilies on Matthew, no.48 (c.388 AD)
 
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Aniseteph

New member
John Chrysostom sounds like a fun guy. And why camels? It sounds like he's got some personal baggage there...
 

Duvet

Member
John Chrysostom sounds like a fun guy. And why camels? It sounds like he's got some personal baggage there...

He wasn't keen on camels. In another Homily he says;
"Thorns are the food of irrational camels....For it is said by those who are acquainted with such things, that there is no animal so implacable, so sulky and revengeful, as a camel" (Homily III on Paul's 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians)

And as for the habit of celebrating a wedding with dancing, he says;
"Everything should be full of chasteness, of gravity, of orderliness; but now I see the reverse, people frisking like camels and mules." (Homily on Paul's Epistle to the Colossians)
 

Shanazel

Moderator
Wow, those early Christians were a barrel of laughs. Paul was a misogynist and John C. sounds like a royal pain in the neck.
 

Duvet

Member
"theologians" - say no more.
Dance has been considered a grave sin by church, particularly the dance done by women. Remember that witchhunt has a justification that women-witches gather and dance in the nights under moonlight.

I feel I ought to point out that these are 'bad-mouth' quotes. Not all are from theologians (or even Christians), and not all theologians considered dancing evil. There are plenty of quotes by Christians praising dance, but that's not the focus of this thread.
 
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