Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations on Acting

Heaven ne’er helps the man who will not act.
Sophocles (495–405 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist

And because we are creatures of habit, we must practice. I urge you to practice acting in spite of fear, practice acting in spite of inconvenience, practice acting in spite of discomfort, and practice acting even when you’re not in the mood.
T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author

No one is truly free, they are a slave to wealth, fortune, the law, or other people restraining them from acting according to their will.
Euripides (480–406 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist

He used this great, sad, motionless face to suggest various related things: a one-track mind near the track’s end of pure insanity; mulish imperturbability under the wildest of circumstances; how dead a human being can get and still be alive…
James Agee (1909–55) American Journalist, Poet, Screenwriter, Film Critic

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright

We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to.
Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic

Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts he does not hide; he exposes himself.
Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American Comedian, TV Personality, Actor

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

Actors are the only honest hypocrites. Their life is a voluntary dream; and the height of their ambition is to be beside themselves. They wear the livery of other men’s fortunes: their very thoughts are not their own.
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist

If a person were to try stripping the disguises from actors while they play a scene upon stage, showing to the audience their real looks and the faces they were born with, would not such a one spoil the whole play ? And would not the spectators think he deserved to be driven out of the theatre with brickbats, as a drunken disturber ?.. Now what else is the whole life of mortals but a sort of comedy, in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each one his part, until the manager waves them off the stage ? Moreover, this manager frequently bids the same actor to go back in a different costume, so that he who has but lately played the king in scarlet now acts the flunkey in patched clothes. Thus all things are presented by shadows.
Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar

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

I have often seen an actor laugh off the stage, but I don’t remember ever having seen one weep.
Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer

The actor searches vainly for the sound of a vanished tradition, and critic and audience follow suit. We have lost all sense of ritual and ceremony—whether it be connected with Christmas, birthdays or funerals—but the words remain with us and old impulses stir in the marrow. We feel we should have rituals, we should do something about getting them and we blame the artists for not finding them for us. So the artist sometimes attempts to find new rituals with only his imagination as his source: he imitates the outer form of ceremonies, pagan or baroque, unfortunately adding his own trapping—the result is rarely convincing. And after the years and years of weaker and waterier imitations we now find ourselves rejecting the very notion of a holy stage. It is not the fault of the holy that it has become a middle-class weapon to keep the children good.
Peter Brook (1925–2022) English Theatre and Film Director

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

One half of the pleasure experienced at a theatre arises from the spectator’s sympathy with the rest of the audience, and, especially from his belief in their sympathy with him.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) American Poet

I have to act to live.
Laurence Olivier (1907–89) English Actor, Producer, Director

In civilized life, where the happiness and indeed almost the existence of man, depends on the opinion of his fellow men. He is constantly acting a studied part.
Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian

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

Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion.
Thomas Reid (1710–96) Scottish Philosopher, Clergyman

Some of the greatest love affairs I’ve known have involved one actor-unassisted.
Wilson Mizner (1876–1933) American Dramatist

Every time I get a script it’s a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors, imagery. It has to have a smell. It’s like falling in love. You can’t give a reason why.
Paul Newman (1925–2008) American Actor, Philanthropist

You spend all your life trying to do something they put people in asylums for.
Jane Fonda (b.1937) American Actress, Political Activist

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

Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise, – His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman

The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.
Daniel Day-Lewis (b.1957) English Actor

Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts. Whenever we want something from somebody or when we want to hide something or pretend, we’re acting. Most people do it all day long.
Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American Film, Stage Actor

Acting is a nice childish profession – pretending you’re someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.
Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) American Actor, TV Personality

Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.
Konstantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality

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

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *