Charlie Chaplin Quotes

1. I hope we shall abolish war and settle all differences at the conference table...I hope we shall abolish all hydrogen and atom bombs before they abolish us first.  



2. A day without laughter is a day wasted.

3. I am not a political man and I have no political convictions. I am an individual and a believer in liberty. That is all the politics I have. On the other hand I am not a super-patriot. Super-patriotism leads to Hitlerism - and we've had our lesson there. I don't want to create a revolution - I just want to create a few more films.

4. Wars, conflict, it's all business. "One murder makes a villain. Millions a hero". Numbers sanctify.





5. I don't think the real America is in New York or on the Pacific Coast; personally, I like the Middle West much better, places like North and South Dakota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul. There, I think, are the true Americans.

6. Friends have asked how I came to engender this American antagonism. My prodigious sin was, and still is, being a non-conformist. Although I am not a Communist I refused to fall in line by hating them. Secondly, I was opposed to the Committee on Un-American Activities - a dishonest phrase to begin with, elastic enough to wrap around the throat and strangle the voice of any American citizen whose honest opinion is a minority of one.

7. Perfect love is the most beautiful of all frustrations because it is more than one can express.

8. I believe that faith is a precursor of all our ideas. Without faith, there never could have evolved hypothesis, theory, science or mathematics. I believe that faith is an extension of the mind. It is the key that negates the impossible. To deny faith is to refute oneself and the spirit that generates all our creative forces. My faith is in the unknown, in all that we do not understand by reason; I believe that what is beyond our comprehension is a simple fact in other dimensions, and that in the realm of the unknown there is an infinite power for good.

9. Brunettes are troublemakers. They're worse than the Jews.

10. Life is a beautiful, magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish…The trouble is you won't fight. You've given up. But there's something just as inevitable as death. And that's life. Think of the power of the universe - turning the Earth, growing the trees. That's the same power within you - if you'll only have the courage and the will to use it. 

11. Imagination means nothing without doing.

12. A man's true character comes out when he's drunk.

13. What do you want meaning for? Life is desire, not meaning.

14. That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.

15. We think too much and feel too little.

16. Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.

17. The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.

18. I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth.


19. Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles.

20. I have no further use for America. I wouldn't go back there if Jesus Christ was President.

21. Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.




22. This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.

23. To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!

24. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.


25. I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.

26. In the end, everything is a gag.

27. A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.

28. I am for people. I can't help it.

29. Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.

30. Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.

31. Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.

32. Actors search for rejection. If they don't get it they reject themselves.



33. To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune.


34. The glamour of it all! New York! America!

35. I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.

36. I'd sooner be called a successful crook than a destitute monarch.






37. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

38. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery.

39. Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is "elephant".

40. Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.

41. Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.

42. We might as well die as to go on living like this.

43. I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.

44. I don't believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.

45. Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.

46. Why should poetry have to make sense?

47. I suppose that's one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.

48. I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.

49. I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat, everything a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large.

50. What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.

51. My pain may be the reason for somebody's laugh. But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody's pain.







52. You'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down.

53. Like everyone else I am what I am: an individual, unique and different, with a lineal history of ancestral promptings and urgings; a history of dreams, desires, and of special experiences, all of which I am the sum total.

54. All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.


55. I always like walking in the rain, so no one can see me crying.

56. All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.

57. Life can be wonderful if you're not afraid of it. All it takes is courage, imagination... and a little dough.

58. You'll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile.



59. That's the trouble with the world. We all despise ourselves.



60. In the light of our egos, we are all dethroned monarchs.


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