Arthur Guiterman Quotes

Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up.

Once I looked into a mirror at my face I felt like it was completely convincing. I was Salieri.

Fame is a by-product which you have to deal with in a sensible way. To believe that it is anything more significant than that is deeply self-deceptive.

You're only famous in the eyes of others. Inside, you're still the same, and not a hundred million records or TV shows can change that. I think the only pitfall of fame is believing that it means something, and behaving like that.

To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities

The vain.- We are like shop windows in which we are continually arranging, concealing or illuminating the supposed qualities other ascribe to us - in order to deceive ourselves.

You'll find out when you reach the top, you're on the bottom.

Is there any vanity greater than the vanity of those who believe themselves without it?

But which was the real me? Let me be perfectly honest: I was a man of many faces. (p.33)

Just because we think we're so wonderful doesn't mean we really are. We could be really terrible animals and just never admit it because it would hurt so much.

I had some ambition. I meant everything to be different with me. I thought I had more strength and mastery. But the most terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except oneself.

In heaven I yearn for knowledge, account all else inanity; On earth I confess an itch for the praise of fools - that's vanity

No, I never thought of it in those terms. I used to go into agents' offices and they'd have pictures of these handsome movie men and I knew I'd never be up there. I'm a journeyman actor. I didn't think about stardom.

One's belief that one is sincere is not so dangerous as one's conviction that one is right. We all feel we are right; but we felt the same way twenty years ago and today we know we weren't always right.

I surrounded myself with people who indulged my ego. They treated me as though I was Ziggy Stardust or one of my characters, never realising that David Jones might be behind it.

A great man la an abstraction of some one excellence; but whoever fancies himself an abstraction of excellence, so far from being great, may be sure that he is a blockhead, equally ignorant of excellence or defect of himself or others.

I do know that we have delusions about ourselves in what we sound like.

Whoever aims publicly at great things and at length perceives secretly that he is too weak to achieve them, has usually also insufficient strength to renounce his aims publicly, and then inevitably becomes a hypocrite.

Success is born out of arrogance, but greatness comes from humility.

One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.

It's a wise person, I guess, who knows he's dumb, and an honest person who knows he's a liar. And it's a dumb person, I guess, whose convinced he's wise...-Bob Slocum

Frankly, I've never considered my own figure so exceptional; until quite recently, I seldom gave it any thought at all

Every man's vanity ought to be his greatest shame; and every man's folly ought to be his greatest secret.

To overestimate the originality of one's thoughts is perhaps a less serious defect than being unaware of their newness. There is a more pronounced lack of sensitivity in underestimating (ourselves and others) than in overestimating.