Top 402 Quotes & Sayings by Walt Disney - Page 5

People look at me in many ways. They've said, 'The guy has no regard for money.' That is not true. I have had regard for money. It depends on who's saying that. Some people worship money as something you've got to have piled up in a big pile somewhere. I've only thought about money in one way, and that is to do something with it. I don't think there's a thing I own that I will ever get the benefit of except through doing things with it. I don't even want the dividends from the stock in the studio, because the government's going to take it away. I'd rather have that in (the company) working.

Art was always a means to an end with me. You get an idea, and you just can't wait. Once you've started, then you're in there with the punches flying. There's plenty of trouble, but you can handle it. You can't back out. It gets you down once in a while, but it's exciting. Our whole business is exciting.

Give the public everything you can give them, keep the place as clean as you can keep it, keep it friendly.

[Mickey Mouse] He popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.

Fantasy, if it's really convincing, can't become dated, for the simple reason that it represents a flight into a dimension that lies beyond the reach of time.

I'm not the perfectionist anymore. It's my staff. They're the ones always insisting on doing something better and better.

For every laugh, there should be a tear.

The human species, although happily ridiculous at times, is still reaching for the stars.

It's because I like you, I don't want to be with you. It's a complicated emotion.

Here in Florida, we have something special we never enjoyed at Disneyland: the blessing of size. There's enough land here to hold all of the ideas and plans we can possibly imagine.

Disneyland is something that will never be finished. It's something that I can keep developing. It will be a live, breathing thing that will need change. A picture is a thing, once you wrap it up and turn it over to Technicolor, you're through. Snow White is a dead issue with me. But I can change the park, because it's alive.

I think what I want Disneyland to be most of all is a happy place - a place where adults and children can experience together some of the wonders of life, of adventure, and feel better because of it.

The fun is in always building something. After it's built, you play with it awhile and then you're through. You see, we never do the same thing twice around here. We're always opening up new doors.

I definitely feel that we cannot do the fantastic things based on the real, unless we first know the real.

I just make what I like - warm and human stories, ones about historic characters and events, and about animals. If there is a secret, I guess it's that I never make the pictures too childish, but always try to get in a little satire of adult foibles.

I happen to be kind of an inquisitive guy and when I see things I don't like, I start thinking, why do they have to be like this and how can I improve them?

Forever is a long long time and time has a way of changing things.

The same thing could have happened on Halloween if somebody in the neighborhood had jumped out and scared him.

I am a patient listener, but opinionated to the point of stubbornness when my mind is made up.

I don't believe in talking down to children. I don't believe in talking down to any certain segment.

No matter what the provocation, I never fire a man who is honestly trying to deliver a job. Few workers who become established at the Disney Studio ever leave voluntarily or otherwise, and many have been on the payroll all their working lives.

When you're working on a project, make sure at least one person knows what they are doing.

I'm just corny enough to like to have a story hit me over the heart.

Sometimes I think of myself as a little bee. I go from one area of the studio to another and gather pollen and sort of stimulate everybody. I guess that’s the job I do.

Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows.

The four Cs as secret of my success-curiosity, confidence,courage and constancy.

It is good to have a failure while you're young because it teaches you so much. For one thing it makes you aware that such a thing can happen to anybody, and once you've lived through the worst, you're never quite as vulnerable afterward.

Anything that has the Disney name to it is something we feel responsible for.

I do not make films primarily for children. I make them for the child in all of us, whether we be six or sixty.

Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.

Disneyland really began when my two daughters were very young. Saturday was always Daddy's Day and I would take them to the merry-go-round, and sit on a bench eating peanuts while they rode. And sitting there alone, I felt there should be something built, some kind of family park where parents and children could have fun together.

In my view, wholesome pleasure, sport, and recreation are as vital to this nation as productive work and should have a large share in the national budget.

As the original 'Mary Poppins' budget of five million dollars continued to grow, I never saw a sad face around the entire Studio. And this made me nervous. I knew the picture would have to gross 10 million dollars for us to break even. But still there was no negative head-shaking. No prophets of doom. Even Roy was happy. He didn't even ask me to show the unfinished picture to a banker. The horrible thought struck me - suppose the staff had finally conceded that I knew what I was doing.

A person should set his goals as early as he can and devote all his energy and talent to getting there. With enough effort, he may achieve it. Or he may find something that is even more rewarding. But in the end, no matter what the outcome, he will know he has been alive.

Born of necessity, the little fellow literally freed us of immediate worry. He provided the means for expanding our organization to its present dimensions and for extending the medium of cartoon animation toward new entertainment levels. He spelled production liberation for us.

If we didn't have deadlines, we'd stagnate.

Speaking for the one field which I feel definitely qualified to comment on, I fully believe the animated picture will emerge as one of the greatest mediums, not only of entertainment but also of education.

If it can be dreamed, it can be done.

We felt that the public, and especially the children, like animals that are cute and little. I think we are rather indebted to Charlie Chaplin for the idea. We wanted something appealing, and we thought of a tiny bit of a mouse that would have something of the wistfulness of Chaplin - a little fellow trying to do the best he could.

Too many people grow up. That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don't remember what it's like to be 12 years old. They patronize, they treat children as inferiors. Well, I won't do that.

Togetherness, for me, means teamwork. In my business of motion pictures and television entertainment, many minds and skillful hands must collaborate...T he work seeks to comprehend the spiritual and material needs and yearnings of gregarious humanity. It makes us reflect how completely dependent we are upon one another in our social and commercial life.

Here is adventure. Here is romance. Here is mystery. Tropical rivers – silently flowing into the unknown. The unbelievable splendor of exotic flowers … the eerie sound of the jungle … with eyes that are always watching. This is Adventureland.

All individuals are different. Some of us just wouldn't be satisfied with just carrying out a routine job and being happy.

The way I see it, Disneyland will never be finished.

Adults are interested if you don't play down to the little 2 or 3 year olds or talk down. I don't believe in talking down to children. I don't believe in talking down to any certain segment. I like to kind of just talk in a general way to the audience. Children are always reaching.

When I was poor living in a garage in Kansas I began to draw the mice that scampered over my desk. That is how Mickey Mouse was born.

But they say if you dream a thing more than once, it's sure to come true.

We grew to our present size almost against ourselves. It was not a deliberately planned commercial venture in the sense that I sat down and said that we were going to make ourselves into a huge financial octopus. We evolved by necessity. We did not sit down and say to ourselves, 'How can we make a big pile of dough?' It just happened.

The difference in the profit and loss is usually ... do not quit.

The insignia meant a lot to the men who were fighting ... I had to do it ... I owed it to them.

Mickey was simply a little personality assigned to the purposes of laughter.

Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive.

A good concert, if you're kind of relaxed, it can do something to you. It's sort of an emotional break you get by listening to music.

Suddenly he stops. He looks up. For, lo, there she stands. The girl of his dreams. Who she is or whence she came, he knows not, nor does he care for his heart tells him that here, here is the maid predestined to be his bride.

Animals have personalities like people and must be studied.

I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment.

I could never convince the financiers that Disneyland was feasible, because dreams offer too little collateral.

I know different ways of looking at things. I have my stockholders, and I feel a very keen responsibility to the shareholders, but I feel that the main responsibility I have to them is to have the stock appreciate. And you only have it appreciate by reinvesting as much as you can back in the business. And that's what we've done... and that has been my philosophy on running the business.

It's something that will never be finished. Something that I can keep developing...and adding to.

Faith I have, in myself, in humanity, in the worthwhileness of the pursuits in entertainment for the masses. But wide awake, not blind faith, moves me. My operations are based on experience, thoughtful observation and warm fellowship with my neighbors at home and around the world.