Laurence Olivier Quotes, Thoughts and images

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

Have a very good reason for everything you do.

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

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

Acting is an everlasting search for truth.

Use your weaknesses; aspire to the strength.

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

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

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

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

Life is enthusiasm, zest.

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

Lead the audience by the nose to the thought.

Acting, is not a profession for adults.

Without acting, I cannot breathe.

We ape, we mimic, we mock. We act.

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

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.

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

Scratch an actor and you'll find an actor.

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.

You think you're an artist; prove it

I believe in the theater; I believe in it as the first glamorizer of thought. It restores dramatic dynamics and their relations to life size.

Autograph-hunting is the most unattractive manifestation of sex-starved curiosity.

I have to act to live.

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

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

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.