A Quote by John Barrymore

You can only be as good as you dare to be bad.

John Barrymore

Quote Topics

Bad Dare Good Only

Quote Author

John Barrymore
American - Actor
February 15, 1882 - May 29, 1942

There was an old brochure for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts with a quote from Robert Redford or someone, that said, "You're only as good as you dare to be bad."

David Copperfield

When it comes to partisan politics, everyone is a hypocrite. And all they care about is whether it hurts or helps them ... Is it good or bad for the Democrats? Is it good or bad for the Republicans? Is it good or bad for Jews, or good or bad for blacks, or is it good or bad for women? Is it good or bad for men? Is it good or bad for gays? That's the way people think about issues today. There is very little discussion of enduring principles.

Alan Dershowitz

Dare to be what you ought to be, dare to be what you dream to be, dare to be the finest you can be. The more you dare, the surer you will be of gaining just what you dare!

Norman Vincent Peale

Everything is possible to him who wills only what is true! Rest in Nature, study, know, then dare; dare to will, dare to act and be silent!

Eliphas Levi

True, we must dare look things in the face before we dare think, speak, act, or assume responsibility. If we dare not even look, what else are we good for?

Lu Xun

[When anything happens, we interpret it as good or bad, but...] We do not know what is really good or bad fortune. [Only the future can decide. For example, what appears to be bad today may in fact lead us to a greater good tomorrow and by the very act of thinking and planning in that positive way, we can help make that good future come true.]

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

But the great artists like Michelangelo and Blake and Tolstoi--like Christ whom Blake called an artist because he had one of the most creative imaginations that ever was on earth--do not want security, egoistic or materialistic. Why, it never occurs to them. "Be not anxious for the morrow," and "which of you being anxious can add one cubit to his stature?" So they dare to be idle, i.e. not to be pressed and duty-driven all the time. They dare to love people even when they are very bad, and they dare not to try and dominate others to show them what they must do for their own good.

Brenda Ueland

Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!

Fyodor Dostoevsky

What if life could be this way? Only the happy parts, none of the terrible, not even the mildly unpleasant. What if we could just cut out the bad and keep the good? This is what I want to do with Violet - give her only the good, keep away the bad, so that good is all we ever have around us.

Jennifer Niven

And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.

Robert Penn Warren

No act is of itself either good or bad. Only its place in the order of things makes it good or bad.

Milan Kundera

If it ever seems to us that the world is a place where bad things only happen to good people, it is because we still believe that bad things happening to bad people is a good thing.

Philip K. Jason

People who cannot respect others for their good qualities - people who only look at the bad in others - are no good themselves. By looking at only the bad points, you open yourself up, and in a real encounter, will most probably be killed.

Masaaki Hatsumi

What is good about Good Friday? Why isn't it called Bad Friday? Because out of the appallingly bad came what was inexpressibly good. And the good trumps the bad, because though the bad was temporary, the good is eternal.

Randy Alcorn

The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economists sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups