Charles Chaplin Quotes

“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”

 “You'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down”

“I always like walking in the rain, so no one can see me crying.”

“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles.”

“A man's true character comes out when he's drunk.”

“We think too much and feel too little.”

“Perfect love is the most beautiful of all frustrations because it is more than one can express.”

“What do you want meaning for? Life is desire, not meaning.”

“Like everyone else I am what I am: an individual, unique and different, with a lineal history of ancestral promptings and urgings; a history of dreams, desires, and of special experiences, all of which I am the sum total.”

“Life can be wonderful if you're not afraid of it. All it takes is courage, imagination ... and a little dough”

“Imagination means nothing without doing.”

“In the end, everything is a gag.”

“That's the trouble with the world. We all despise ourselves.”

“I will not join any club who will take me as a member”

“Tomorrow the birds will sing! Be Brave! Face Life!”

“I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician”

“Actors search for rejection. If they don’t get it they reject themselves.”

“In the light of our egos, we are all dethroned monarchs”

“Je n'ai pas besoin d'être réconcilié avec Dieu, mon conflit est avec les hommes.”

“I don't think the real America is in New York or on the Pacific Coast; personally, I like the Middle West much better, places like North and South Dakota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul. There, I think, are the true Americans”

“A vida é uma peça de teatro que não permite ensaios. Por isso, cante, chore, dance, ria e viva intensamente, antes que a cortina se feche e a peça termine sem aplausos”

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot. To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!”

“I am but one thing, and one thing only - and that is a clown. It places me on a higher plane than any politician.”

“You'll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile.”

“Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.”

“From such trivia, I believe my soul was born.”

“I have no further use for America. I wouldn't go back there is Jesus Christ was President.”

“All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman, and a pretty girl.”

“Guarda il cielo. Non troverai mai un arcobaleno se stai guardando per terra.

Look up to the sky. You'll never find rainbows if you’re looking down.”

“Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.”

“In this desperate way, I started many a comedy.”

“I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.”

“Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is 'elephant'.”

“Nothing lasts in this wicked world...not even our troubles”

“Mirror is my best friend because when I cry it never laughs at me”

“I don't believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career. “

“Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.”

“A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.”

“The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.”

“The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.”

“I am for people. I can't help it.”

“That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.”

           

“I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. everything a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large.”

“Rudolph Valentino had an air of sadness. He wore his success gracefully, appearing almost subdued by it. He was intelligent, quiet and without vanity, and had great allure for women, but had little success with them, and those whom he married treated him rather shabbily. . . No man had greater attraction for women than Valentino; no man was more deceived by them."”

“Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.”

“You have to believe in yourself, that's the secret. Even when I was in the orphanage, when I was roaming the street trying to find enough to eat, even then I thought of myself as the greatest actor in the world.”

“It seems our laws are always telling us what not to do - are always keeping us from enjoying ourselves. Human beings are made just as much for having fun as goose-stepping and sweating in factories.”

“What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.”

“The building is a special place because of its architecture, ... But it's people who make it special by participating in it.”

“That´s what all we are. Amateurs. We don´t live long enough to be anything else.”

“Why should poetry have to make sense?”

“Billions of years it´s taken to evolve human conciousness and you want to wipe it out. Wipe out the miracle of all existence.”

“What can stars do? Nothing..But sit on their axis!”

“I think people have heard the name [Garbo], but I'm not sure that a lot of people out there know and appreciate what she meant as an actress, ... I love that her intelligence is very attractive. It's not just her face, which is gorgeous. It's that she's attractive in a much fuller way than that.”

“I like friends as I like music, when I am in the mood. To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune.”

“The minute you bought your ticket you were in another world.”

“I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.”

“All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.”

“Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.”

“I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth.”

“My childhood was sad, but now I remember it with nostalgia, like a dream.”

“It isn't the ups and downs that make life difficult; it's the jerks.”

“I hope we shall abolish war and settle all differences at the conference table . . . I hope we shall abolish all hydrogen and atom bombs before they abolish us first.”

“Even funnier than a man who has been made ridiculous is the man who, having had something funny happen to him, refuses to admit that anything out of the way has happened, and attempts to maintain his dignity. Perhaps the best example is the intoxicated man who, though his tongue and walk will give him away, attempts in a dignified manner to convince you that he is quite sober. He is much funnier than the man who, wildly hilarious, is frankly drunk and doesn't care a whoop who knows it. Intoxicated characters on the stage are almost always "slightly tipsy" with an attempt at dignity because theatrical managers have learned that this attempt at dignity is funny.”

“Comedy really is a serious study, although it must not be taken seriously. That sounds like a paradox, but it is not. It is a serious study to learn characters; it is a hard study. But to make comedy a success there must be an ease, a spontaneity in the acting that cannot be associated with seriousness.”

“Through humor, we see in what seems rational, the irrational; in what seems important, the unimportant. It also heightens our sense of survival and preserves our sanity.”

“One of the things most quickly learned in theatrical work is that people as a whole get satisfaction from seeing the rich get the worst of things. The reason for this, of course, lies in the fact that nine tenths of the people in the world are poor, and secretly resent the wealth of the other tenth.”

“Figuring out what the audience expects, and then doing something different, is great fun to me.”

“The first time I looked at myself on the screen, I was ready to resign [the movie contract]. That can't be I, I thought. Then when I realized it was, I said, "Good night." Strange enough, I was told that the picture was a scream. I had always been ambitious to work in drama, and it certainly was the surprise of my life when I got away with the comedy stuff.”

“Naturalness is the greatest requisite of comedy. It must be real and true to life. I believe in realism absolutely. Real things appeal to the people far quicker than the grotesque. My comedy is actual life, with the slightest twist or exaggeration, you might say, to bring out what it might be under certain circumstances.”

“I don't want perfection of detail in the acting. I'd hate a picture that was perfect, it would seem machine made. I want the human touch, so that you love the picture for its imperfections.”

“I think a very great deal of myself. Everything is perfect or imperfect, according to myself. I am the perfect standard.”

“I usually go to see myself the first night of a new performance, but I don't laugh. No, I just go to see whether or not the film is taking, and what I've done that I shouldn't do. And if it's a success, I'm happy. There's something that makes you feel pretty good in knowing that all over the world people are laughing at what you're doing. But if it isn't a success, then it's terrible, to feel that you're a failure all over the world at the same time.”

“My only enemy is time.”

“I don't believe I deserve dinner unless I've done a day's work.”

“Life is a beautiful magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish.”

“I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!”