Laurence Olivier famous quotes

Have a very good reason for everything you do.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Success #Business #Integrity

Don't waste your time striving for perfection; instead, strive for excellence - doing your best.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Perfection #Excellence #Waste

Use your weaknesses; aspire to the strength.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Weakness #Use #Aspiration

Surely we have always acted; it is an instinct inherent in all of us. Some of us are better at it than others, but we all do it.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Intuition #Instinct #Inherent

Acting is illusion, as much illusion as magic is, and not so much a matter of being real.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Real #Magic #Acting

I believe that in a great city, or even in a small city or a village, a great theater is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Believe #Cities #Theatre

If I wasn't an actor, I think I'd have gone mad. You have to have extra voltage, some extra temperament to reach certain heights.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Thinking #Mad #Gone

The humility to prepare and the self-confidence to bring it off.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Sports #Humility #Self Confidence

I often think that could we creep behind the actor's eyes, we would find an attic of forgotten toys and a copy of the Domesday Book.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Book #Eye #Thinking

Striving for perfection is the greatest stopper there is. You'll be afraid you can't achieve it. It's your excuse to yourself for not doing anything. Instead, strive for excellence, doing your best.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Perfection #Excellence #Excuse

Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Funny #Acting #Adults

I don't know what is better than the work that is given to the actor-to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Heart #Knowledge #Theatre

Above all, you must remain open and fresh and alive to any new idea.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Ideas #Alive

Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Life #Disappointment #Sunset

My stage successes have provided me with the greatest moments outside myself, my film successes the best moments, professionally, within myself.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Film #Moments #Stage

No matter how well you perform, there's always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it's lousy.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Intelligent #Thinking #Innovation

I'd like people to remember me for a diligent expert workman. I think a poet is a workman. I think Shakespeare was a workman. And God's a workman. I don't think there's anything better than a workman.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Life #Wisdom #Thinking

We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are - politicians, playboys, cardinals and kings.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Time #Kings #Politician

If he was lost for a moment, he would dive straight back into its honey.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Honey #Moments #Lost

Lead the audience by the nose to the thought.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Noses #Audience

I have to act to live.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Theatre

You must have - besides intuition and sensitivity - a cutting edge that allows you to reach what you need. Also, you have to know life - bastards included - and it takes a bit of one to know one, don't you think?
-- Laurence Olivier

#Cutting #Thinking #Intuition

I am far from sure when I am acting and when I am not or, should I more frankly put it, when I am lying and when I am not. For what is acting but lying and what is good acting but convincing lying?
-- Laurence Olivier

#Lying #Acting #Should

What is acting but lying and what is good lying but convincing lying?
-- Laurence Olivier

#Lying #Acting #Convincing

The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other points of the compass.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Drama #Exercise #Expression

Work is life for me, it is the only point of life-and with it there is almost religious belief that service is everything.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Religious #Belief #Religious Belief

When you're a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you're older, it's a straight part.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Character #Men #Age

Art is a little bit larger than life - it's an exhalation of life and I think you probably need a little touch of madness.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Art #Thinking #Needs

A sexual athlete is not likely to find sufficient energy for work of another athletic kind, and the acting of great parts most definitely was and always will be athletic, depending on inner if not on visible energy. Members of other professions that depend on the expenditure of physical energy must, I believe, find similar difficulties when attempting to double up on their energies. One has often heard that the most magnificent specimens of boxers, wrestlers and champions in almost every branch of athletic sport prove to be disappointing upon the removal of that revered jockstrap.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Sports #Sex #Humorous

We used to have actresses trying to become stars; now we have stars trying to become actresses.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Stars #Trying #Actresses

We ape, we mimic, we mock. We act.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Apes

I should be soaring away with my head tilted slightly toward the gods, feeding on the caviar of Shakespeare. An actor must act.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Actors #Caviar #Feeding

Life is enthusiasm, zest.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Zest #Enthusiasm #Life Is

Without acting, I cannot breathe.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Acting #Breathe

Shakespeare - The nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Eye #Incarnation

If you're an artist, you've got to prove it.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Art #Artist #Prove It

I'm rather bored by the subject - meaning me. It's a sort of a yoke, but at times you know, a yoke is a kind of comfort. And it's always there.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Boredom #Comfort #Yoke

Acting is an everlasting search for truth.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Theatre #Acting #Everlasting

What is the main problem of the actor? It is to keep the audience awake, and not let them go to sleep, then wake up and go home feeling they've wasted their money.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Home #Sleep #Feelings

Of all the things I've done in life, directing a motion picture is the most beautiful. It's the most exciting and the nearest than an interpretive craftsman, such as an actor can possibly get to being a creator.
-- Laurence Olivier

#Beautiful #Actors #Done