Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Marlene Dietrich (German-American Actress, Singer)

Marlene Dietrich (1901–92,) originally Maria Magdalena von Losch, was a German-born American actress and singer. She became famous for her part as Lola in The Blue Angel (1930,) one of many films she made with Josef von Sternberg. From the 1950s, she was also successful as an international cabaret star.

Born in Berlin, Germany, Dietrich made her film début as a maid in Der Kleine Napoleon (1922, ‘The Little Napoleon.’) She broke on to the international scene with her performance as the temptress Lola-Lola in Germany’s first sound film Der blaue Engel (1930, The Blue Angel.) Moving to Hollywood with the director Josef von Sternberg, she developed a sensual film personality, used to effect in a succession of exotic, erotic melodramas like Morocco (1930,) Blonde Venus (1932,) The Scarlet Empress (1934,) and The Devil Is a Woman (1935.)

Labeled ‘box-office poison’ in 1937 after her public popularity had declined, she returned triumphantly as the brawling saloon singer Frenchie in Destry Rides Again (1939.) Later film work tended to exploit her legendary charisma. However, she was influential in A Foreign Affair (1948,) Rancho Notorious (1952,) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961.) She made frequent tours for entertaining U.S. troops during World War II and, after the war, pursued a career as an international chanteuse and cabaret star, singing trademark songs such as “Falling in Love Again.”

English critic and biographer Sheridan Morley wrote the biography Marlene Dietrich (1977.) Marlene Dietrich (1993) is a portrait by her daughter Maria Riva; Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song (2001) is a made-for-TV documentary by grandson J. David Riva.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Marlene Dietrich

There is a gigantic difference between earning a great deal of money and being rich.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Wealth

Courage and grace are a formidable mixture. The only place to see it is in the bullring.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Grace, Hunting

It’s the ones you can call up at 4NULL a.m. that really matter.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Friendship

Sex. In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Sex

Sleeping alone, except under doctor’s orders, does much harm. Children will tell you how lonely it is sleeping alone. If possible, you should always sleep with someone you love. You both recharge your mutual batteries free of charge.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Sleep

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognizably wiser than oneself.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Quotations, Speaking, Authority

If there is a supreme being, he’s crazy.
—Marlene Dietrich

A king, realizing his incompetence, can either delegate or abdicate his duties. A father can do neither. If only sons could see the paradox, they would understand the dilemma.
—Marlene Dietrich

It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Friendship

Gentleman. A man who buys two of the same morning paper from the doorman of his favorite nightclub when he leaves with his girl.
—Marlene Dietrich

A man would prefer to come home to an unmade bed and a happy woman than to a neatly made bed and an angry woman.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Marriage, Wives

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Superstition

Logic is the key to an all-inclusive spiritual well-being.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Logic

Until they come to see us from their planet, I wait patiently. I hear them saying: Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Space

Glamour is assurance. It is a kind of knowing that you are all right in every way, mentally and physically and in appearance, and that, whatever the occasion or the situation, you are equal to it.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Confidence, Assurance

The weak are more likely to make the strong weak than the strong are likely to make the weak strong.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Weakness

Do let him read the papers. But not while you accusingly tiptoe around the room, or perch much like a silent bird of prey on the edge of your most uncomfortable chair. (He will read them anyway, and he should read them, so let him choose his own good time.) Don’t make a big exit. Just go. But kiss him quickly, before you go, otherwise he might think you are angry; he is used to suspecting he is doing something wrong.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Marriage, Husbands

A new kind of award has been added—the deathbed award. It is not an award of any kind. Either the recipient has not acted at all, or was not nominated, or did not win the award the last few times around. It is intended to relieve the guilty conscience of the Academy members and save face in front of the public. The Academy has the horrible taste to have a star, choking with emotion, present this deathbed award so that there can be no doubt in anybody’s mind why the award is so hurriedly given. Lucky is the actor who is too sick to watch the proceedings on television.
—Marlene Dietrich

Grumbling is the death of love.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Self-Pity, Hedonism

Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Forgiveness

To be completely woman you need a master, and in him a compass for your life. You need a man you can look up to and respect. If you dethrone him it’s no wonder that you are discontented, and discontented women are not loved for long.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Men & Women, Men, Women

The average man is more interested in a woman who is interested in him than he is in a woman with beautiful legs.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Women, Men

There comes a time when suddenly you realize that laughter is something you remember and that you were the one laughing.
—Marlene Dietrich
Topics: Laughter

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