John Ford Quotes

Revenge proves itself to be its own executioner.

I like, as a director and a spectator, simple, direct, frank films. Nothing disgusts me more than snobbism, mannerism, technical gratuity ... and, most of all, intellectualism.

Contentment gives a crown, where fortune hath denied it.

Affections injured by tyranny, or rigor of compulsion, like tempest-threatened trees, unfirmly rooted, never spring to timely growth

Beauty that clothes the outside of our face, is cursed if it not be clothed with grace.

It is easier to get an actor to be a cowboy than to get a cowboy to be an actor.

Love is the tyrant of the heart; it darkens
Reason, confounds discretion; deaf to Counsel
It runs a headlong course to desperate madness.

Alas, poor gentleman,
He look'd not like the ruins of his youth
But like the ruins of those ruins.

Tell us, pray, what devil This melancholy is, which can transform Men into monsters.

Whilst we strive To live most free, we're caught in our own toils.

Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes.

Let them fear bondage who are slaves to fear; the sweetest freedom is an honest heart.

They are the silent griefs which cut the heart-strings.

Revenge proves its own executioner.

Why, I hold fate Clasped in my fist, and could command the course Of time's eternal motion, hadst thou been One thought more steady than an ebbing sea.

Who better than an Irishman can understand the Indians, while still being stirred by tales of the US cavalry?

Sister, look ye, How, by a new creation of my tailor's I've shook off old mortality.

Lost, I am Lost! My fates have doomed my death.
The more I strive, I love; the more I love,
The less I hope. I see my ruin, certain.
What judgement or endeavors could apply
To my incurable and restless wounds
I throughly have examined, but in vain.
Oh, that it were not in religion sin
To make our love a god and worship it!
I have even wearied heaven with prayers, dried up
The spring of my continual tears, even starved
My veins with daily fasts; what wit or art
Could counsel, I have practiced. But, alas,
I find all these but dreams and old men's tales
To fright unsteady youth; I'm still the same.
Or I must speak or burst. Tis not, I know,
My lust, but tis my fate that leads me on.
Keep fear and low fainthearted shame with slaves!
I'll tell her that I love her, through my heart
Were rated at the price of that attempt.

A bachelor May thrive by observation on a little, A single life's no burthen: but to draw In yokes is chargeable, and will require A double maintenance.

Titles of honor add not to his worth, who is himself an honor of his titles.

I didn't show up at the ceremony to collect any of my first three Oscars. Once I went fishing, another time there was a war on, and on another occasion, I remember, I was suddenly taken drunk.

Love is dead; let lovers' eyes,
Locked in endless dreams,
The extremes of all extremes,
Ope no more, for now Love dies.