Top 106 Quotes & Sayings by Sidney Poitier

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American actor Sidney Poitier.

Last updated on December 23, 2024.

Sidney Poitier was a Bahamian and American actor, film director, and diplomat. In 1964, he was the first African American actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. He received two competitive Golden Globe Awards, a competitive British Academy of Film and Television Arts award (BAFTA), and a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. Poitier was one of the last major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.

American - Actor | February 20, 1924 - January 6, 2022

Source: Wikipedia

As a man, I've been representative of the values I hold dear. And the values I hold dear are carryovers from the lives of my parents.

Sidney Poitier

My father was a poor man, very poor in a British colonial possession where class and race were very important.

Sidney Poitier

My mother was the most amazing person. She taught me to be kind to other women. She believed in family. She was with my father from the first day they met. All that I am, she taught me.

Sidney Poitier

If you apply reason and logic to this career of mine, you're not going to get very far. You simply won't.

Sidney Poitier

In my case, the body of work stands for itself... I think my work has been representative of me as a man.

Sidney Poitier

So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.

Sidney Poitier

I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions.

Sidney Poitier

Generally, I tend to despise human behavior rather than human creatures.

Sidney Poitier

Mine was an easy ride compared to Jackie Robinson's.

Sidney Poitier

Jackie Robinson is a true legend.

Sidney Poitier

I learned to hear silence. That's the kind of life I lived: simple. I learned to see things in people around me, in my mom, dad, brothers and sisters.

Sidney Poitier

I am not a hugely religious person, but I believe that there is a oneness with everything. And because there is this oneness, it is possible that my mother is the principal reason for my life.

Sidney Poitier

Since I couldn't actuate the things that I wanted to do, the only weapon I had was to say no.

Sidney Poitier

Far as I can tell, I still have most of my hair, my gut is not hanging over my belt, and I still have all of my teeth.

Sidney Poitier

I had learned something of Miami from people who had visited there, so I knew what to expect.

Sidney Poitier

I was the only Black person on the set. It was unusual for me to be in a circumstance in which every move I made was tantamount to representation of 18 million people.

Sidney Poitier

We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists... in the loved one, perfection.

Sidney Poitier

My autobiography was simply the story of my life.

Sidney Poitier

I cannot be understood in three minutes.

Sidney Poitier

To be compared to Jackie Robinson is an enormous compliment, but I don't think it's necessarily deserved.

Sidney Poitier

There is not racial or ethnic domination of hopelessness. It's everywhere.

Sidney Poitier

My father was the quintessential husband and dad.

Sidney Poitier

So it's been kind of a long road, but it was a good journey altogether.

Sidney Poitier

I always wanted to be someone better the next day than I was the day before.

Sidney Poitier

I never had an occasion to question color, therefore, I only saw myself as what I was... a human being.

Sidney Poitier

The journey has been incredible from its beginning.

Sidney Poitier

I decided in my life that I would do nothing that did not reflect positively on my father's life.

Sidney Poitier

I come from a great family. I've seen family life and I know how wonderful, how nurturing, and how wonderful it can be.

Sidney Poitier

History passes the final judgment.

Sidney Poitier

When I set out to become an actor, I had set myself a standard.

Sidney Poitier

So I had to be careful. I recognized the responsibility that, whether I liked it or not, I had to accept whatever the obligation was. That was to behave in a manner, to carry myself in such a professional way, as if there ever is a reflection, it's a positive one.

Sidney Poitier

I'd seen my father. He was a poor man, and I watched him do astonishing things.

Sidney Poitier

So I'm OK with myself, with history, my work, who I am and who I was.

Sidney Poitier

In America, it is difficult to be your own man.

Sidney Poitier

I did not go into the film business to be symbolized as someone else's vision of me.

Sidney Poitier

My father was very big on marriage.

Sidney Poitier

But my dad also was a remarkable man, a good person, a principled individual, a man of integrity.

Sidney Poitier

I get offered work these days.

Sidney Poitier

But I always had the ability to say no. That's how I called my own shots.

Sidney Poitier

I'm not a library.

Sidney Poitier

I sometimes like the pictures photographers take of me.

Sidney Poitier

I knew what it was to be uncomfortable in a movie theater watching unfolding on the screen images of myself - not me, but black people - that were uncomfortable.

Sidney Poitier

I lived in a country where I couldn't live where I wanted to live. I lived in a country where I couldn't go where I wanted to eat. I lived in a country where I couldn't get a job, except for those put aside for people of my colour or caste.

Sidney Poitier

If I'm remembered for having done a few good things, and if my presence here has sparked some good energies, that's plenty.

Sidney Poitier

I had chosen to use my work as a reflection of my values.

Sidney Poitier

My father was a certain kind of man - I saw how he treated my mother and his family and how he treated strangers. And I vowed I would never make a film that would not reflect properly on my father's name.

Sidney Poitier

I have always been a learner because I knew nothing.

Sidney Poitier

I wanted to explore the values that are at work, underpinning my life.

Sidney Poitier