Top 106 Quotes & Sayings by Peter Ustinov - Page 2

Unfortunately, a superabundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares

World Government is not only possible, it is inevitable; and when it comes, it will appeal to patriotism in its truest sense,in its only sense, the patriotism of humans who love their national heritages so deeply that they wish to preserve them in safety for the common good.

Generals are fascinating cases of arrested development - after all, at five all of us wanted to be generals.

American democracy is the inalienable right to sit on your front porch, in your pyjamas, drinking a can of beer and shouting out 'Where else is this possible?' Which doesn't seem to me to be freedom, really.

I had started by imitating a parrot, which is unusual, in that a parrot is supposed to imitate you. By taking the initiative you allow the parrot no alternative but to be itself, which proves again that attack is often the best defence.

This is a free country, madam. We have a right to share your privacy in a public place.

In my day, there were things that were done, and things that were not done, and there was even a way of doing things that were not done.

The great thing about history is that it is adaptable.

Irrespective of nationality, soldiers are always open to the same discomfort and to the same comradeship the world over. I'll make things easy for you if you make things easy for me. That is, after all the unwritten law of the barracks.

Sometimes I wish I could just fall in love. Then, at least you know who your opponent is.

As I grow older I find that though I think I'm saying the same things as I always did, people listen to me more.

The young need old men. They need men who are not ashamed of age, not pathetic imitations of themselves. ... Parents are the bones on which children sharpen their teeth.

I think that first nights should come near the end of a play's run-as indeed, they often do.

The stupidity of a stupid man is mercifully intimate and reticient, while the stupidity of an intellectual is cried from the rooftops.

A twinge of conscience is a glimpse of God.

Flogging. The only solution to every problem. I warrant even the culprit himself doesn't know! It was just... his... turn!

There are experts in little things but there are no experts in big things. There are experts in this fact and that fact but there are no moral experts.

And here is the lesson I learned in the army. If you want to do a thing badly, you have to work at it as though you want to do it well.

Two members of my profession who are not urgently needed by my profession, Mr. Ronald Reagan and Mr. George Murphy, entered politics, and they've done extremely well. Since there has been no reciprocal tendency in the other direction, it suggests to me that our job is still more difficult than their new one.

British education is probably the best in the world, if you can survive it. If you can't there is nothing left for you but the diplomatic corps.

Toronto is a kind of New York operated by the Swiss.

Because they have been in love they have survived everything that life could throw at them, even their own failures.

Love is an act of endless forgiveness. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.

Did you know that the worldwide food shortage that threatens up to five hundred million children could be alleviated at the cost of only one day, only one day, of modern warfare.

That weakness in human nature which goes by the name of strength.

The stupidity of a stupid man is exercised in a restricted field; the stupidity of an intelligent man has a much wider diffusion, and a far greater effect, aided as it is by the element of surprise.

I'm Rally of Unionist Separist Extremes, sometimes known as the R.U.S.E. … It's the party at present in power.

Please keep off the grass.

It's wrong to flog a man. It's against his being a man.

There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.

Basically I'm a very serious person, but I think the form it takes with me is comedy. I see the amusing side of all potentially pompous situations.

I have Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, French and Ethiopian blood in my veins.

I don't know why I have these dreams. I've never wanted to be Pope. In fact, I have a greater affinity to Martin Luther.

Life was cheap in the Middle Ages. It has become cheaper since. It is only in specific battles for specific lives that our culture is put to the test, and with it our humanity.

A diplomat these days is nothing but a head waiter who's allowed to sit down occasionally.

Marriage is like a three-speed gearbox - affection, friendship, love. It is not advisable to crash your gears and go right through to love straightaway. You need to ease your way through. The basis of love is respect, and that needs to be learned from affection and friendship.

Robert Vavra is one of these artists, part magician, part alchemist, who is able to create a series of photographs in unforgettable compositions. Only visible are the dunes, the blinding fields of flowers and the vast sky, the epic intimacy of Robert Vavra's vision.

Acting on television is like being asked by the captain to entertain the passengers while the ship goes down.

The older I get, the more people listen to me - even though I say the same as always.

Sex is a conversation carried out by another means.

I am an international citizen conceived in Russia, born in England, working in Hollywood, living in Switzerland, and touring the World.

All the hideously calculated hypocrisy of men when they commit a murder in the name of justice. Then it's the time of death on a grander scale, the hour of the great offenses ... fix your bayonets boys ...gentlemen, synchronize your watches ... in ten seconds time the barrage starts ... a thousand men are destined to die in order to capture a farmhouse no one has lived in for years...

People are annoyed with the Chinese for not respecting more human rights. But with a population that size it's very difficult to have the same attitude to human rights.

I am just a man, not fit to do the work of God... or the Devil.

I hate being moved. I hate that man who came in. So self-righteous, so cruel. He made fun of me, that's why I cried. You never did that. You led me into temptation by your - politeness.

I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter.