Laurence Olivier Quotes

There is a horrible misconception that you can either act or not. But experience is everything.

I take to acting like a fish to water.

Everybody's an artist. Everybody's God. It's just that they're inhibited. I believe in people so much that if the whole of civilization is burned so we don't have any memory of it, even then people will start to build their own art. It is a necessity -- a function. We don't need history.

For a decision-the freest of my actions just happens like hiccups inside me or like a bird singing outside me.

I think creativity is a capability of human being. When we're born, we're - all of us has this capability. But part of us forget to use it.

It's only human to have a few doubts whether to play or not.

I just follow my instinct.

I'm human. I want to play, I want to perform well.

I do a lot of things instinctively.

I have never been able to go against my instinct.

I think being fascinated by others is just who we are; we're curious creatures.

I think the actual art of expressing yourself is a very important part of being human. And an important part of being a performer is understanding what it's like to create yourself.

Politics runs in every human being, and so does music.

The people who watch you on the court often don't know you as an actual person - a human being.

I've always known from a young age that creativity is natural.

What I choose to do reflects who I am.

Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, lessens the friction of social contacts. . . . It is only in lies, wholeheartedly and bravely told, that human nature attains through words and speech the forebearance, the nobility, the romance, the idealism, that-being what it is-it falls so short of in fact and in deed.

Authenticity is more than speaking; Authenticity is also about doing. Every decision we make says something about who we are.

That fundamentally undermines your ability to access the best part of your instincts. So my advice to those people would be stop thinking and introspecting so much and do a little more acting.

Thought is the organizing factor in man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions.

Men are like trees: each one must put forth the leaf that is created in him.

A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action. It is as if a tennis player before returning a ball stopped to think about his views of the physical and mental advantages of tennis. You must act as you breathe.

The one person who has more illusions than the dreamer is the man of action.

Everyone is passionate about something. Usually more than one thing. We are born with it.

Sometimes the best decisions in life are on the spur of the moment. So I generally try to do what I think is right. And sometimes I make mistakes.