The Times Great Quotations. Группа авторов

to JG Lockhart, 1830]

      Sir Walter Scott, Scottish writer (1771–1832)

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      My mountain did not seem to me a lifeless thing of rock and ice, but warm and friendly and living.

      She was a mother hen, and the other mountains were chicks under her wings.

      Man of Everest (1955)

      Tenzing Norgay, Nepali Sherpa mountaineer (1914–1986)

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      Many of life’s failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up.

      Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847–1931)

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      Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

      Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847–1931)

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      It is sobering to consider that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead for a year.

      Tom Lehrer, American humourist and singer-songwriter (1928–)

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      Success is relative: It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.

      The Family Reunion (1939)

      TS Eliot, English-American poet, critic and dramatist (1888–1965)

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      In the United States there’s a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.

      International Herald Tribune (1988)

      Umberto Eco, Italian philosopher, writer and professor of semiotics (1932–2016)

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      Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

      Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (1853–1890)

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      I felt as if I was walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and this trial.

      [On becoming prime minister during the Second World War]

      Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister of the UK, historian and Nobel Prize winner (1874–1965)

ACTING AND DRAMA

      Just say the lines and don’t trip over the furniture.

      Sir Noël Coward, English playwright (1899–1973)

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      Television has brought back murder into the home — where it belongs.

      Alfred Hitchcock, English film director (1899–1980)

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      If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.

      Teatr i iskusstvo (1904)

      Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright and short-story writer (1860–1904)

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      The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.

      Shadows of the Gods (1958)

      Arthur Miller, American playwright (1915–2005)

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      The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.

      My Autobiography (1964)

      Charlie Chaplin, English comic actor, director and composer (1889–1977)

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      Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.

      The Lonely Life (1962)

      Bette Davis, American actress (1908–1989)

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      You spend all your life trying to do something they put people in asylums for.

      Jane Fonda, American actress (1937–)

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      Acting should be like punk in the best way. It should be a full-on expression of self – only without the broken bottles.

      Uncut (2000)

      John Cusack, American actor (1966–)

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      Playing Shakespeare is very tiring. You never get to sit down, unless you’re a king.

      Josephine Hull, American actress (1877–1957)

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      Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult.

      Time (1978)

      Laurence Olivier, English actor (1907–1989)

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      A painter paints, a musician plays, a writer writes – but a movie actor waits.

      A Life on Film (1967)

      Mary Astor, American actress (1906–1987)

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      Acting is standing up naked and turning around slowly.

      Life Is a Banquet (1977)

      Rosalind Russell, American actress (1907–1976)

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      Being another character is more interesting than being yourself.

      Sir John Gielgud, English actor (1904–2000)

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      The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

      Sir Ralph Richardson, English actor (1902–1983)

ACTIONS AND BEHAVIOUR

      Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.

      Beyond the Mexique Bay (1934)

      Aldous Huxley, English writer and philosopher (1894–1963)

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      Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

      Themes and Variations (1950)

      Aldous Huxley, English writer and philosopher (1894–1963)

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      It is always easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.

      Alfred Adler, Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist (1870–1937)

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      Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labour by taking up another.

      The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)

      Anatole France, French poet (1844–1924)

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