Top 69 Quotes & Sayings by Theodore Bikel
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Austrian actor Theodore Bikel.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
When something is moving you get that intake of breath and that stillness from the audience.
I know for certain of only one commandment, one obligation, that God imposes upon us, and that is to be compassionate toward other human beings.
We Jews have a special attachment to the Book. The study of page after page in tomes yellowing with age was obligatory.
Audiences are audiences.
I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.
Epistemology is the study of knowledge. By what conduit do we know what we know?
I tried for a while to be an agricultural worker and was hopelessly bored. I would stand around in heaps of manure and sing about the beauty of the work I wasn't doing.
After the advent of the written word, the masses who could not - or were not permitted to - read, were given sermons by the few who could.
Must we be put to shame by much smaller and poorer countries, by Ireland, France, Austria or Sweden, who have understood that a nation's support of its arts is a matter of both national pride and cultural survival?
I remain convinced that I can be a true universalist only when I am a better Jew.
The play is always fresh to me. It's not the audience's fault that I've said the words before.
What moves me is neither ethnocentric pride nor sectarian arrogance. I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures. But it is mine.
But there is a difference here: When Jewish children are murdered, Arabs celebrate the deed. The death of an Arab child is no cause for celebration in Israel.
I am not, and have never been, in favor of boycotting Israel.
No movement can afford to be caught in a time warp and exist in a state of suspended animation.
We live in a world of guns, bombs and terror. To conquer hate seems a nigh-impossible task.
But, when I toil in the field of Jewish culture which I frequently do, I am indeed a Jewish artist.
I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures or that the Jewish song is better than the song of my neighbor.
I am first, and foremost, an actor. That's what I am. To me, a song is a mini-drama. My musical ability informs the actor as well because it gives me a sense of timing that non-musicians don't have. So, one hand washes the other.
Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission.
I do prefer the stage. It's really the granddaddy of them all.
'Visiting Mr. Green' is a good play. I enjoy being in it, and I have a wonderful colleague, Aidan deSalaiz, to work with. Audiences like it a lot. What's not to like?
I am a universalist, passionately devoted to the cause of equality within the human family.
You can't expect the entire world to come to New York to see you. You have to travel to them.
Despite a large body of work in films, TV, theatre and concerts, I am viewed by many as a Jewish artist. I do not resent the label, except for the fact that I disapprove of labels in general.
You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.
On the stage you're there, it's live. There's a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.
I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation.
Throughout my life I have cared as deeply about the songs of all peoples as I have about the rights of all peoples.
It's a sad thing to contemplate, but I'm the last surviving cast member of 'The African Queen.'
I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.
I am not a specialist but a general practitioner in the world of the arts.
For I firmly believe that Jewish life, indeed any communal life, can only be organized according to democratic principles.
If I have one vanity wish, it would be to direct. It's the only thing I haven't done yet that I would like to.
You learn more from the flops than from the hits.
You cannot please all of the people all of the time, and that is truer in the arts than anywhere else.
You always draw on your experiences with live audiences to know how to do comedy on films. You're working for a laugh that may or may not come six months later, but you're working in a vacuum at the time you are doing it.
Every actor wants to direct.
Right up to the middle of this century all perceptions of the world around us were delivered via the bookshelf or the paper route.
All too often arrogance accompanies strength, and we must never assume that justice is on the side of the strong. The use of power must always be accompanied by moral choice.
I refuse to do shows that are narrowly constructed, that appeal to only one sentiment. I do a lot of Jewish material in front of non-Jews and a lot of non-Jewish material in front of Jews on the simple theory that the non-Jews are entitled to a glimpse of a Jewish world and the Jews are entitled to a glimpse of the world.
I don't speak out because I am an actor nor will I keep silent because I am an actor. I respect my profession, but it endows me with no special privileges; but it also does not limit me or muzzle me. I am a person and a citizen with the attendant responsibilities of voice and vote.
I glory in the fact that a human being has multiple talents and exercises them all with a degree of integrity and artistic proficiency. That's what I do.
I prefer to choose which traditions to keep and which to let go.
By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to action. Such films do battle for our very soul.
No doubt unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed into being by mere declarations.
I created the role of Captain Von Trapp.
I am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us back a sense of wonder.
While we all could agree that the Zionist ideal is alive and well, there is serious doubt whether the Zionist movement can be said to be an ongoing proposition, fragmented as its components are in ideology and in practice.
In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.
No doubt, unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed by mere declarations.
As an artist I have an even more abiding interest in the compact between the Arts and Government.
I always sang, I always acted, I always played.
I'm exceedingly proud of being an actor, but I never recommend it to anyone.
I am a Zionist, an ardent supporter of Israel, its defender when I deem Israel to be right and its critic when I deem it to be wrong.
No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language.
Having come to live in this age is as though one were to have entered another country. Learn its language or risk being left out.
In my mind the city of Ariel is a thorn in Israel's side and a serious obstacle to peace.
I do not know who there is among us that can claim to know God's purpose and God's intent.
One might have thought the world would stop ascribing moral equivalence between acts of terrorism and acts of punishing terrorism. It has not happened that way.
Related Authors
Arnold Schwarzenegger Quotes
Austrian
Actor
Benedict Cumberbatch Quotes
English
Actor
Bruce Lee Quotes
American
Actor
Clint Eastwood Quotes
American
Actor
Daniel Radcliffe Quotes
British
Actor
Dwayne Johnson Quotes
American
Actor
Jeff Bridges Quotes
American
Actor
Johnny Depp Quotes
American
Actor
Kevin Hart Quotes
American
Actor
Kevin Spacey Quotes
American
Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio Quotes
American
Actor
Rob Lowe Quotes
American
Actor
Robert Pattinson Quotes
English
Actor
Sylvester Stallone Quotes
American
Actor
Will Rogers Quotes
American
Actor
Zach Braff Quotes
American
Actor