Peter Ustinov quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Peter Ustinov

Peter Ustinov Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Peter Ustinov on Wise Famous Quotes.

When I was small, I would refuse to drink when I ate fish because I thought the fish would reconstitute itself in my stomach

In my day, there were things that were done, and things that were not done, and there was even a way of doing things that were not done.

By increasing the size of the keyhole, today's playwrights are in danger of doing away with the door.

Because they have been in love they have survived everything that life could throw at them, even their own failures.

Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy.

At the age of four with paper hats and wooden swords we're all Generals. Only some of us never grow out of it.

Please keep off the grass.

Life is unfair but remember sometimes it is unfair in your favour.

I can never forgive God for having invented the French

To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.

The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought.

Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much.

I have three daughters and I find as a result I played King Lear almost without rehearsal.

That weakness in human nature which goes by the name of strength.

Basically I'm a very serious person, but I think the form it takes with me is comedy. I see the amusing side of all potentially pompous situations.

A twinge of conscience is a glimpse of God.

The great thing about history is that it is adaptable.

Intelligent or not, we all make mistakes and perhaps the intelligent mistakes are the worst, because so much careful thought has gone into them.

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious

I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.

Sometimes I wish I could just fall in love. Then, at least you know who your opponent is.

I think that first nights should come near the end of a play's run-as indeed, they often do.

It is youth that has discovered love as a weapon.

If Botticelli were alive today he'd be working for Vogue.

And here is the lesson I learned in the army. If you want to do a thing badly, you have to work at it as though you want to do it well.

Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.

At my age, I'm often asked if I'm frightened of death and my reply is always, I can't remember being frightened of birth.

Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, it is our duty to furnish it well.

Love is an act of endless forgiveness; a tender look which becomes a habit.

Unfortunately, a superabundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares

I have four children which is not bad considering I'm not a Catholic.

Generals are fascinating cases of arrested development - after all, at five all of us wanted to be generals.

Courage is often lack of insight, whereas cowardice in many cases is based on good information.

In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.

Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.

I am just a man, not fit to do the work of God ... or the Devil.

I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer.

The only reason I made a commercial for American Express was to pay for my American Express bill.

The older I get, the more people listen to me - even though I say the same as always ...

Monica Seles: I'd hate to be next door to her on her wedding night.

Toronto is a kind of New York operated by the Swiss.

What is education but a process by which a person begins to learn how to learn?

I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilized music in the world.

The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us

I don't know why I have these dreams. I've never wanted to be Pope. In fact, I have a greater affinity to Martin Luther.

To be gentle, tolerant, wise and reasonable requires a goodly portion of toughness.

If you're going to be a prisoner of your own mind, the least you can do is make sure it's well furnished.

Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.

The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come

The French and the British are such good enemies that they can't resist being friends.

Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.

Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of.

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

I am an international citizen conceived in Russia, born in England, working in Hollywood, living in Switzerland, and touring the World.

unfortuneately a super abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential of nightmares

The truth is an ambition which is beyond us.

A diplomat these days in nothing, but a head waiter who is allowed to sit down occasionally.

I'm Rally of Unionist Separist Extremes, sometimes known as the R.U.S.E. ... It's the party at present in power.

I have Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, French and Ethiopian blood in my veins.

Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.

People who reach the top of the tree are only those who haven't got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom.

If history teaches us one thing, than that history teaches us nothing.

Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.

It's wrong to flog a man. It's against his being a man.

To live like a poor man is only fun when you are rich.

Sex is a conversation carried out by other means. If you get on well out of bed, half the problems of bed are solved.

Did you know that every two hours the nations of this world spend as much on armaments as they spend on the children of this world every year?

Books, I don't know what you see in them. I can understand a person reading them, but I can't for the life of me see why people have to write them.

The stupidity of a stupid man is mercifully intimate and reticient, while the stupidity of an intellectual is cried from the rooftops.

Flogging. The only solution to every problem. I warrant even the culprit himself doesn't know! It was just - his turn!

Pavarotti is not vain, but conscious of being unique.

Acting on television is like being asked by the captain to entertain the passengers while the ship goes down.

Men think about women. Women think about what men think about them.

British education is probably the best in the world, if you can survive it. If you can't there is nothing left for you but the diplomatic corps.

It is our responsibilities not ourselves that we should take seriously.

Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died.

As I grow older I find that though I think I'm saying the same things as I always did, people listen to me more.

This is a free country, madam. We have a right to share your privacy in a public place.