Laurence Olivier Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Laurence Olivier

  Perfection, Excellence, Waste

  69 Copy quote

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

  Laurence Olivier

  Sports, Humility, Self Confidence

  71 Copy quote

• Have a very good reason for everything you do.

  Laurence Olivier

  Success, Business, Integrity

  58 Copy quote

• The art of persuasion. The actor persuades himself, first, and through himself, the audience.

  Laurence Olivier

  Art, Actors, Firsts

  Hal Burton, Laurence Olivier (1967). “Great acting: Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike, Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft, Michael Redgrave, Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Noël Coward”, British Broadcasting Corporation

  27 Copy quote

• 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

  27 Copy quote

• Don't be afraid to be outrageous; the critics will shoot you down anyway.

  Laurence Olivier

  Critics, Outrageous

  16 Copy quote

• Acting is an everlasting search for truth.

  Laurence Olivier

  Theatre, Acting, Everlasting

  13 Copy quote

• Use your weaknesses; aspire to the strength.

  Laurence Olivier

  Theatre, Weakness, Use

  27 Copy quote

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

  Laurence Olivier

  Intelligent, Thinking, Innovation

  21 Copy quote

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

  Laurence Olivier

  Eye, Incarnation

  In 'Kenneth Harris Talking To' 'Sir Laurence Olivier'

  21 Copy quote

• 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, Natural Instinct, Instinct

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

  29 Copy quote

• What is acting but lying and what is good lying but convincing lying?

  Laurence Olivier

  Lying, Acting, Convincing

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Knowledge, Heart, Theatre

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  18 Copy quote

• In spite of a heavy disguise, a few days' growth on my face, dark glasses, a beret and one of William's jackets that fitted me not at all, as I emerged from a hotel in Lecce, a young fisherman pointed me out to his friends and said "Lavrenche Olivaire." It was not all that amazing; if you're not known in Italy, you're not known anywhere.

  Laurence Olivier

  Funny, Humor, Dark

  18 Copy quote

• Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult.

  Laurence Olivier

  Funny, Humorous, Acting

  In Time 3 July 1978, p. 33

  85 Copy quote

• Above all, you must remain open and fresh and alive to any new idea.

  Laurence Olivier

  Ideas, Alive, New Ideas

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  10 Copy quote

• Life is enthusiasm, zest.

  Laurence Olivier

  Zest, Enthusiasm, Life Is

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  "Laurence Olivier". Book by Foster Hirsch, 1979.

  52 Copy quote

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

  Laurence Olivier

  Real, Magic, Acting

  "Famous Actors and Actresses on the American Stage". Book by William C. Young, 1975.

  21 Copy quote

• 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

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  18 Copy quote

• In the great wealth, the great firmament of your nation's generosities this particular choice may perhaps be found by future generations as a trifle eccentric, but the mere fact of it . . . the prodigal, pure, human kindness of it . . . must be seen as a beautiful star in that firmament which shines upon me at this moment, dazzling me a little, but filling me with warmth of the extraordinary elation, the euphoria that happens to so many of us at the first breath of the majestic glow of a new tomorrow.

  Laurence Olivier

  Beautiful, Stars, Kindness

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  3 Copy quote

• Lead the audience by the nose to the thought.

  Laurence Olivier

  Theatre, Noses, Audience

  18 Copy quote

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