Top 183 Quotes & Sayings by Charlie Chaplin

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.

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

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

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

To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune.

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.

I am for people. I can't help it.

Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.

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.

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.

The glamour of it all! New York! America!

I suppose that's one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.

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.

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

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

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

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

A day without laughter is a day wasted.

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

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.

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

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

We might as well die as to go on living like this.

I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.

We think too much and feel too little.

Actors search for rejection. If they don't get it they reject themselves.

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

In the end, everything is a gag.

I'd sooner be called a successful crook than a destitute monarch.

To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!

Why should poetry have to make sense?

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.

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

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.

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

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.

Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.

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

Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles.

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.

More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.

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

The mirror is my best friend because when I cry it never laughs.

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.

Judge a man not by how he treats his equals but by how he treats his inferiors.

You need Power, only when you want to do something harmful otherwise Love is enough to get everything done.

You'll never find rainbows, If you're looking down...

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.

Life is a play that does not allow testing. So, sing, cry, dance, laugh and live intensely, before the curtain closes and the piece ends with no applause.

My pain may be the reason for somebody's laugh. But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody's pain.

Time is the best author. It always writes the perfect ending.

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

Life laughs at you when you are unhappy; Life smiles at you when you are happy; But life salutes you when you make other happy.

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

Your naked body should only belong to those who fall in love with your naked soul.

You have to believe in yourself. That's the secret.

The best thing in life is to go ahead with all your plans and your dreams, to embrace life and to live everyday with passion, to lose and still keep the faith and to win while being grateful. All of this because the world belongs to those who dare to go after what they want. And because life is really too short to be insignificant.

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