Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations on Actors

An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer.
Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American Film, Stage Actor

…the case for individual freedom rests largely on the recognition of the inevitable and universal ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievements of our ends and welfare depend
Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) British Economist, Social Philosopher

Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession; do not run after distinctions and rewards; but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.
Konstantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality

The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.
Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British Actor

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright

The most difficult character in comedy is that of a fool, and he must be no simpleton who plays the part.
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist

You name it and I’ve done it. I’d like to say I did it my way. But that line, I’m afraid, belongs to someone else.
Sammy Davis, Jr. (1925–90) American Singer, Musician, Dancer, Actor

Compare the cinema with theatre. Both are dramatic arts. Theatre brings actors before a public and every night during the season they re-enact the same drama. Deep in the nature of theatre is a sense of ritual. The cinema, by contrast, transports its audience individually, singly, out of the theatre towards the unknown.
John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist

It is not whether you really cry. It’s whether the audience thinks you are crying.
Ingrid Bergman (1915–82) Swedish Film and Stage Actress

Someplace along the line the audience discovered you. In my case it was playing the Gipper.
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American Head of State

Show me a great actor and I’ll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you’ve seen the devil.
W. C. Fields (1880–1946) American Actor, Comedian, Writer

Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist

While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright

A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.
Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German Poet, Playwright, Theater Personality

For the theatre one needs long arms; it is better to have them too long than too short. An artiste with short arms can never, never make a fine gesture.
Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923) French Actress

The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation.
Konstantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality

Acting is a question of absorbing other people’s personalities and adding some of your own experience.
Paul Newman (1925–2008) American Actor, Philanthropist

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright

When [actors] are talking, they are servants of the dramatist. It is what they can show the audience when they are not talking that reveals the fine actor.
Cedric Hardwicke (1893–1964) English Stage, Film Actor

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that’s printed about him.
Orson Welles (1915–85) American Film Director, Actor

You don’t merely give over your creativity to making a film—you give over your life! In theatre, by contrast, you live these two rather strange lives simultaneously; you have no option but to confront the mould on last night’s washing-up.
Daniel Day-Lewis (b.1957) English Actor

Stage charm guarantees in advance an actor’s hold on the audience, it helps him to carry over to large numbers of people his creative purposes. It enhances his roles and his art. Yet it is of utmost importance that he use this precious gift with prudence, wisdom, and modesty. It is a great shame when he does not realize this and goes on to exploit, to play on his ability to charm.
Konstantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality

A true priest is aware of the presence of the altar during every moment that he is conducting a service. It is exactly the same way that a true artist should react to the stage all the time he is in the theater. An actor who is incapable of this feeling will never be a true artist.
Konstantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality

It’s a business you go into because you’re an egocentric. It’s a very embarrassing profession.
Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) American Actor, TV Personality

The profession of the player, like that of the painter, is one of the imitative arts, whose means are pleasure, and whose end should be virtue.
William Shenstone (1714–63) British Poet, Landscape Gardener

Acting is the perfect idiot’s profession.
Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) American Actor, TV Personality

Until Ace Ventura, no actor had considered talking through his ass.
Jim Carrey (b.1962) Canadian Actor, Comedian

I don’t want to read about some of these actresses who are around today. They sound like my niece in Scarsdale. I love my niece in Scarsdale, but I won’t buy tickets to see her act.
Vincent Price (1911–93) American Film Actor

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American Novelist, Playwright

A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself.
Jean Anouilh (1910–87) French Dramatist

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