“Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane.”

Last update March 26, 2022. History

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Marcus Tullius Cicero 180
Roman philosopher and statesman -106–-43 BC

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“Almost no one dances sober, unless he is insane.”
Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit.

Pro Murena (Chapter VI, sec. 13)

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“Those who dance appear insane to those who cannot hear the music.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Misattributed
First recorded appearance: Germaine de Staël's On Germany (1813). ". . . sometimes even in the habitual course of life, the reality of this world disappears all at once, and we feel ourselves in the middle of its interests as we should at a ball, where we did not hear the music; the dancing that we saw there would appear insane." There are several other pre-Nietzsche examples, indicating that the phrase was widespread in the nineteenth-century; it was referred to in 1927 as an "old proverb".

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“Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

1982, quoted in John Cage Visual Art: To Sober and Quiet the Mind, ISBN 1891300164
1980s

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“It is almost a joke, but a joke that nobody tells.”

Source: Wolf Hall

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