91+ Kirk Douglas Quotes On Education, Stanley Kubrick And John Wayne

Kirk Douglas was an American actor, producer, director and author. He was one of the biggest box office draws in the 1950s and 1960s, and was known for his roles in films such as Spartacus, Paths of Glory, and Seven Days in May. He was also the father of actor Michael Douglas and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Kirk Douglas on leadership, life, education.

Top 10 Kirk Douglas Quotes

1. I came from abject poverty. There was nowhere to go but up.
2. Streets crowded with people strolling, or sitting at outdoor cafes. And always, talking, gesturing, singing, laughing. I liked Rome immediately.Everybody was a performer.
3. Virtue is not photogenic.
4. You haven't learned how to live until you've learned how to give.
5. The only advantage I have found in being Jewish is that I can be openly anti-Semitic.
6. Life is like a B-picture script! It is that corny. If I had my life story offered to me to film, I'd turn it down.
7. I guess I was a bad boy... Yes, yes, I've had lots of women in my life.
8. Virtue is not photogenic. What is it to be a nice guy? To be nothing, that's what. A big fat zero with a smile for everybody.
9. Know what a loner is? He's a born cripple. He's a cripple because the only person he can live with is himself. It's his life, the way he wants to live. It's all for him.
10. The learning process continues until the day you die.

Kirk Douglas Short Quotes

• I'm a loner clear down deep to my guts.
• Fear is a terrible thing. It makes you do awful things.
• Now, what does an actor who can't talk do? Wait for silent pictures to come back?
• When you get to my age, you find that most of your dear friends are gone.
• The best wine comes from home, wherever it is.
• Fame is as much about luck as it is about talent, perhaps more.
• Sometimes, the thing that ties you down sets you free.
• I know Italians and I like them. A lot of my father's best friends were Italians.
• If I have to speak in public, I am terrified.
• I think religion has caused so much catastrophe in the world.

Kirk Douglas Quotes About Life

The biggest lie is the lie we tell ourselves in the distorted visions we have of ourselves, blocking out some sections, enhancing others. What remains are not the cold facts of life, but how we perceive them. That's really who we are. — Kirk Douglas

I have been an actor for most of my life. When I started out, I didn't think about anything except what was good for me. Like many movie stars, I became all wrapped up in myself. — Kirk Douglas

Life is like a B-picture script. — Kirk Douglas

If I thought a man had never committed a sin in his life, I don't think I'd want to talk with him. A man with flaws is more interesting. — Kirk Douglas

I've played some good guys as well, in Spartacus, Paths of Glory and my favorite picture, Lonely Are the Brave, so I had a mixture of parts in my life. — Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas Quotes About Star

When you become a star, you don't change - everyone else does. — Kirk Douglas

I didn't start out to be a movie star. I started out to be an actor. — Kirk Douglas

I never wanted to be in movies. In a sense, I'm still a failure because I wanted to be a star on the stage. — Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas Quotes About Love

I remember little things that break my heart. We were coming out of Michael's house one day, and he noticed my shoelaces were undone. He bent down and tied them. I almost cried. To me, it was such a gesture of love. — Kirk Douglas

Why can't a woman be more like a dog, huh? So sweet, loving, attentive. — Kirk Douglas

When you get old the worst thing is you lose so many friends. Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne. People who I loved to work with. — Kirk Douglas

Love has more depth as you get older. — Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas Famous Quotes And Sayings

My mother and my father were illiterate immigrants from Russia. When I was a child they were constantly amazed that I could go to a building and take a book on any subject. They couldn't believe this access to knowledge we have here in America. They couldn't believe that it was free. — Kirk Douglas

When I produced Spartacus, the writer was Dalton Trumbo, who spent a year in jail because he would not answer McCarthy's questions about other people. He submitted the picture under the false name of Sam Jackson. — Kirk Douglas

Now, why is it that most of us can talk openly about the illnesses of our bodies, but when it comes to our brain and illnesses of the mind we clam up and because we clam up, people with emotional disorders feel ashamed, stigmatized, and don't seek the help that can make the difference. — Kirk Douglas

On a crowded bus in Israel, a mother was speaking to her son in Yiddish. An Israeli woman reprimanded her. "You should be speaking Hebrew. Why are you talking to him in Yiddish?" The mother answered, "I don't want he should forget he's a Jew." — Kirk Douglas

I was living in a terrible time when people were being accused of being communists, and they attacked the movie industry, especially the writers. People couldn't work if they were on the blacklist. The studios banned them. It was the most onerous period in movie history. I don't think we have ever had a period so dark as that. — Kirk Douglas

I'm concerned that the world is a mess. That's why when I wrote my last book, Let's Face It, I dedicated it to the younger generation because, let's face it, the world is in a mess. Right now, the young people will inherit that mess. I think we have to do everything we can. — Kirk Douglas

No matter how bad things are, they can always be worse. So what if my stroke left me with a speech impediment? Moses had one, and he did all right. — Kirk Douglas

The first thing I look for in a woman is warmth-femininity. It's got nothing to do with a pretty face. — Kirk Douglas

I bought the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I paid to have it made into a play and I played in it for six months. I came back and I tried to make it into a movie, without success. — Kirk Douglas

Maybe there is no peace in this world. I don't know ... But I know as long as we live we must stay true to ourselves. — Kirk Douglas

Being seventy has its advantages. I was outspoken before, but now what have I got to keep quiet about? — Kirk Douglas

Since my stroke, I have begun to see so many miracles all around me. I look out of the window in my room: verdant grass, silver-tipped oak leaves, tall palm trees gentle swaying as they reach to the sky, masses and masses of roses. All colors, so many shapes, exquisite fragrances. — Kirk Douglas

I have a great respect for actors like Clint Eastwood, who's a wonderful director. I think two pictures that I directed were not successful, so I decided not to make any more. — Kirk Douglas

I never had any desire to be a film actor. I never thought I was the good-looking movie type, which I assumed they wanted. — Kirk Douglas

If I can get enough signatures, to present an apology to slavery, I will present it to the President. The House of Representatives has already passed the resolution for the apology, but it has to pass the Senate. I think, in spite of all our problems, I think we're in the right direction. — Kirk Douglas

Really a bad guy is more interesting, dramatically, than the good guy. — Kirk Douglas

I have studied religion, and I have concluded that there is some power. We don't understand it. — Kirk Douglas

Acting is a youthful profession. — Kirk Douglas

If you want to know about a man you can find out an awful lot by looking at who he married. — Kirk Douglas

When you reach 95, after you get over your surprise, you start looking back. — Kirk Douglas

You know, you have to have some inner philosophy to deal with adversity. — Kirk Douglas

I was not a very good Jew. I never practised what Judaism tells you to do, to teach your kids all about Judaism. — Kirk Douglas

"Hail to the Chief" was played, and the President got up and made a gracious opening remark. "I've been in this office for six years, and yet every time I hear that music, I turn around wondering who they're playing it for." — Kirk Douglas

Sometimes an interviewer will look at me and say, 'You're bright!' They're actually surprised I might be bright. — Kirk Douglas

Being second generation in Hollywood is complicated: Success is expected, and yet the track record of the second generation is not great. Only a small group of us, like Jane Fonda, have succeeded. — Kirk Douglas

When I first came to Hollywood, the blacklist was just starting, and they were having hearings in Washington. What most people don't know is the judge of these hearings himself was later convicted of misappropriation. 'Spartacus' helped break the blacklist, because Spartacus was a real character. — Kirk Douglas

I felt [It Runs in the Family] it was a picture that, after I'm gone, my family would like to see it. It was a wonderful mixture of people in my family. — Kirk Douglas

You'll never see Spartacus in a (expletive) chair! — Kirk Douglas

I was going to play in First Blood, but I suggested to changing it and I dropped out. I said to [Silvester] Stallone, 'You know, I almost stopped you from making millions of dollars,' because in my suggestion, I killed his character at the end of the picture . — Kirk Douglas

I have been trying to create a campaign to have our country make an apology for slavery, for the way that blacks were treated before the Civil War and after the Civil War. — Kirk Douglas

All children are natural actors, and I'm still a kid. If you grow up completely, you can never be an actor. — Kirk Douglas

When I made Spartacus during the McCarthy Era, we were losing our freedom. It was an awful, awful way. McCarthy saw Communists everywhere, in every level of government and they concentrated on Hollywood and especially on Hollywood writers. — Kirk Douglas

In order to achieve anything you must be brave enough to fail. — Kirk Douglas

I think the election of [Barack] Obama was a great step to prove to the world that we believe that all men were created equal. I think it will show that we have humility. — Kirk Douglas

With John Wayne, we argued all the time and we made four pictures. — Kirk Douglas

My kids never had the advantages I had. I was born poor. — Kirk Douglas

We look for wine when we should be hunting bread. — Kirk Douglas

It's tough to make a movie about movies... We're all too close to it. But 'The Bad and the Beautiful' was very good. — Kirk Douglas

The first time I had got an offer to come to Hollywood, I turned it down. I said, "No, I'm an actor of the stage. — Kirk Douglas

I have always been grateful that my Russian mother and father came to this country to give me a better chance, and I have had a better chance. — Kirk Douglas

My first job was on Broadway. Then I went into the Navy. When I came out of the Navy, I went back to Broadway and a friend of mine, Lauren Bacall, was in Hollywood filming with Humphrey Bogart. She told one of her producers I was great in my play, and he saw it and cast me in 'The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'. — Kirk Douglas

A stroke is a very difficult thing. You get depressed. . . . What I found was this: the cure for depression is to think of others, to do for others. You can always find something to be grateful for. — Kirk Douglas

I was conscious of my father's fame from the time I was 6. — Kirk Douglas

What would my parents think about America if they arrived here today? Would they even want to come? I wonder. — Kirk Douglas

Too often, I have not been what I wanted to be; I've succumbed to pressures. Yes, I have. The things I've done that I liked, I've always done against advice. — Kirk Douglas

I don't need a critic to tell me I'm an actor. I make my own way. Nobody's my boss. Nobody's ever been my boss. — Kirk Douglas

Acting is make-believe. I never believe I'm the character; I want you to believe. — Kirk Douglas

I didn't think I was so tough until I did 'Champion'; then I was a tough guy. — Kirk Douglas

I directed two films, not very successfully, and after that, I went back to being an actor and a producer. — Kirk Douglas

I'm an actor; I have made my living by acting, and I almost think I owe it to the public to express my feelings and not as a character on a screen but as myself. — Kirk Douglas

I went to Hollywood to test for Martha Ivers and I thought I was going to play the part that Van Heflin played.But they wanted me to play the part of Barbara Stanwyck's husband, so I played that. Then when I finished the movie, I went back to Broadway and did another flop. — Kirk Douglas

Obey the voice within - it commands us to give of ourselves and help others. As long as we have the capacity to give, we are alive — Kirk Douglas

When you have a stroke, you must talk slowly to be understood, and I've discovered that when I talk slowly, people listen. They think I'm going to say something important! — Kirk Douglas

I think that [Barack] Obama was elected because young people are starting to get interested in their country and I think that's a very healthy thing. — Kirk Douglas

I have one computer that my wife gave me. All I know how to do, and I do it every day, is play Spider Solitaire. And I don't have a cell phone. — Kirk Douglas

You know, sometimes an interviewer will look at me and say - you're bright! They're actually surprised I might be bright. — Kirk Douglas

You have not learned to live until you have learned to give — Kirk Douglas

Listen - pacemaker, crash, stroke. What does it mean? God doesn't want me now. That's all. — Kirk Douglas

People are always talking about the old days. They say that the old movies were better, that the old actors were so great. But I don't think so. All I can say about the old days is that they have passed. — Kirk Douglas

Life Lessons by Kirk Douglas

1. Kirk Douglas taught us to never give up on our dreams, no matter how difficult or impossible they may seem. He worked hard to become an actor and eventually achieved success and stardom.
2. He also showed us the importance of giving back to those in need. He was a generous philanthropist and was passionate about helping others.
3. Lastly, he demonstrated the power of resilience and perseverance. Despite facing many challenges in his life, he never gave up and was able to overcome them.