Charlie Chaplin Quotations

A day without laughter is a day wasted.

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

We think too much and feel too little.

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

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

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

The glamour of it all! New York! America!

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.

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.

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.

Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone

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

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

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

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.

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

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

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

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.

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

Let us fight to free the world

I don't need interesting camera angles, I am interesting.

The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all.

Nothing in life is permanent, not even one's troubles.

Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!

It isn't the ups and downs that make life difficult; it's the jerks.

This is a story of a period between two World Wars — an interim in which insanity cut loose. Liberty took a nose dive, and humanity was kicked around somewhat.

I have found that great ideas come when you have a great desire to have them.

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone.

The people are applauding you because none of them understands you and applauding me because everybody understands me.

As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow. Today I call it 'maturity'.

In this book I do not intend to give a blow-by-blow description of a sex bout: I find them inartistic, clinical and unpoetic. The circumstances that lead up to sex I find more interesting.

When we got off the streetcar at Times Square, it was somewhat of a letdown. Newspapers were blowing about the road and pavement, and Broadway looked seedy, like a slovenly woman just out of bed.

Quebec from the boat looked like the ramparts where Hamlet's ghost might have walked.

I don't want to create a revolution — I just want to create a few more films.

Time is the best author. It always writes the perfect ending.

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.

Why not? After all, it belongs to him.

Man is an animal with primary instincts of survival. Consequently his ingenuity has developed first and his soul afterwards. The progress of science is far ahead of man's ethical behavior.

Moving pictures need sound as much as Beethoven symphonies need lyrics,

Life salutes u when u make others happy

Over the years I have discovered that ideas come through an intense desire for them; continually desiring, the mind becomes a watchtower on the lookout for incidents that may excite the imagination.

I like friends as I like music - when I am in the mood.

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

To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.

Hair is vitally personal to children. They weep vigorously when it is cut for the first time; no matter how it grows, bushy, straight or curly, they feel they are being shorn of a part of their personality.

Greed has poisoned men's souls

In the work of the greatest geniuses, humble beginnings will reveal themselves somewhere, but one cannot trace the slightest sign of them in Shakespeare ... I am not concerned with who wrote the works of Shakespeare ... but I can hardly think it was the Stratford boy. Whoever wrote them had an aristocratic attitude.

What can stars do? Nothing..But sit on their axis!

We must laugh in the face of our helplessness against the forces of nature, or go insane.

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.

Unless I write every day, I don't feel I deserve my dinner.

The cinema is little more than a fad. It's canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage.

In the 17th Chapter of St. Luke it is written: "the Kingdom of God is within man" - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. ... Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all mens happiness.

Ability to think, like the violin or piano, requires daily practice

Simplicity of approach is always best.

I do not need drugs to be a genius, do not take a genius to be human, but I need your smile to be happy.

Had I known of the actual horrors of the German concentration camps, I could not have made The Great Dictator, I could not have made fun of the homicidal insanity of the Nazis.

3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is the next prime after 8.

I am not religious in the dogmatic sense ... I neither believe nor disbelieve in anything.

What a sad business is being funny!

I am known in parts of the world by people who have never heard of Jesus Christ.

You are only as good as the woman you are standing beside.

If you're really truthful with yourself, it's a wonderful guidance.

Nothing quite like it. The feeling of film.

Life is a beautiful magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish.

Nothing is more important than the moving image; except for my cup of coffee in the morning.

Your Pain May Give Laugh To Somebody But Your Laugh Shouldn't Give Pain To Anybody

I believe in the power of laughter and tears as an antidote to hatred and terror

I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. 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. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful.

I like to walk in rain, so that nobody can see my tears.

Words seem so futile, so feeble. You are all such lovely, beautiful people ... thank you.

The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury. [and therefore not appreciate it fully or be grateful for it every moment.]

One murder makes a villain. Millions a hero.

There is greatness in everyone.

Through humour, we see in what seems rational, the irrational; in what seems important, the unimportant

My technique is the outcome of thinking for myself, of my own logic and approach; it is not borrowed from what others are doing.

Where words leave off, gesture begins. Don't we speak of a person being speechless with rage, dancing with impatience, setting his teeth? The final motions of the soul are speechless, animal, grotesque, or of an incomparable beauty.

Tomorrow, the birds will sing. Be brave. Face life.

Anyone can make them cry, but it takes a genius to make them laugh.