Morgan Freeman Quotes

The trick to any profession is making it look easy.

Marijuana prohibition is just the stupidest law possible ... Jus t legalize it and tax it like we do liquor.

Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero

Anyone who spends a significant amount of time with me finds me disagreeable.

Rob [Reiner] is a teddy bear. He's hell delicious. He's a really good director. He's a great soul. In the movie business, I would call him a movie mom. The only person I hold in equal esteem is Clint Eastwood. Now I have worked with a lot of terrific directors, and I don't mean to be putting any of them below their own station, but these two, I relish working with them.

It's what I learn from the great actors that I work with. Stillness. That's all and that's the hardest thing.

I was always ambitious. I always wanted to be more than I was ... I always wanted to be a movie actor.

I'm not a comedian. I don't make things funny if they're not funny. I don't invent funny stuff.

These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized.

I can only be so long without work before I start getting antsy.

It's just the stupidest law possible ... You're just making criminals out of people who aren't engaged in criminal activity. And we're spending zillions of dollars trying to fight a war we can't win! We could make zillions, just legalize it and tax it like we do liquor. It's stupid.

I seldom get into the mood of the story. It's acting. I go in, I act, I quit. I don't take anything away from it.

If you get called on to help somebody pull focus to some good cause, that's good use of your fame. I don't try to avoid that.

Insanity is coasting through life in a miserable existence when you have a caged lion locked inside and the key to release it.

My earrings are worth just enough to buy me a coffin if I die in a strange place. That was the reason why sailors used to wear them.

If you want to see a miracle, be the miracle

Nelson Mandela was a man of incomparable honor, unconquerable strength, and unyielding resolve
a saint to many, a hero to all who treasure liberty, freedom and the dignity of humankind.

If you're comfortable on a horse, you're comfortable on a horse. It's like being on a motorbike.

I do know there are a lot of people who seem to be in my corner, and that's, of course, wonderful. I'm really more interested in the nomination than in the award, because I think the nomination just puts you within a group of outstanding actors.

Let me tell you what justice is. Justice is the law. And that man's feeble attempt to lay down the principles of deceny.

Black history is American history.

This kid came up with Napster, and before that, none of us thought of content protection.

Someone's going to put the clothes on you, and part of being an actor is wearing costumes. Costumes tell you an awful lot about who you are, so you just, it's nothing.

I was raised in Mississippi, so heat and humidity is my bread and butter. It keeps me going. I can't stand cold weather.

Even through my good-looking youth, I wasn't called on for any romantic parts, which is okay. What I was called on to do, I enjoyed doing. The funny thing about life is that if you live long enough, I think, you'll get every wish you ever had. It'll all come true.

As long as you feel like a victim, you are one.

I think you have to be left-brained, to a certain extent, to understand science. I can talk about it, but I can't do it.

Our situation, with global warming and air quality and all of that, has gotten to be catastrophic.

If we say, 'Oh, my goodness ... we think we've found another Earthlike planet,' we will start trying to figure out how to get there. And I have this strong belief that whatever we think we can do, whatever we can dream, we can do.

Don't be different just for different's sake. If you see it differently, function that way. Follow your own muse, always.

The bigger point here is that golf is a good metaphor for one's life. The challenge of golf for me is trying to learn new rules. It's something you always have to work at; you don't get perfect at golf. It's the never-ending quest for betterment.

I think the educational value is what comes first. I've always thought that the most effective tools we have for disseminating information, i.e. education, is television and film.

Your job is always the same if it's a juggernaut or if it's just one of these little jewels of a film that's gonna wind up at the Laemmle or something, so your job doesn't change whatsoever ... give it your best shot.

Never pay for what you steal

Somebody once said to me after I'd done "Deep Impact," "What is it like to play a Black president," and I said, "I didn't play a Black president. I played a president. I just happened to be Black. There's a difference.

The public feels that if it's on the Internet and you can access it, you deserve it. You haven't committed any kind of crime. We may even have to rename piracy. But in any case, we have to confront it.

I think you take a job, you owe it as much passion as the job itself demands. And most jobs demand that you be totally committed.

I was a B student in math, simply because my teachers liked me, as an actor.

My roots were pretty far removed from high income. It's interesting to be back there at the level of income I have now, at this stage in my life.

If we get the right kind of energy, there are endless amounts. I think we should be developing every kind of alternative fuel that is available to us. That includes hydrogen to soybeans, from solar to wind. Whatever we can find that is going to help us clean up the environment we should be working really hard on developing.

If I stay at home, I'm not famous. I'm only famous when I'm out in the streets, so I don't go out on the streets much.

I've been living with myself all of my life, so I know all of me. So when I watch me, all I see is me. It's boring.

Attacking People With Disabilities is the Lowest Display of Power I Can Think Of

As you grow in this business, you learn how to do more with less.

I don't get off on romantic parts. But I often think if I had had my dental work done early on, well, maybe.

My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don't get it, I can't do it.

I like producing but acting is the quintessential me, and I'm probably better at that than I am at anything. My heart has always been in the movies.

In my home, who is my boss? If you ask my wife she'll say certainly not her. She claims that she can't make me do anything and so she's not my boss. I am. I'm pretty sure, maybe.

If your income on films or whatever you're producing using film drops below a certain level, then you don't have enough money to stay in business. People like to say that this is all just about making money, but if you don't make money, you don't make anything.

I find it difficult to watch myself ... I find it boring.

I hate the word homophobia. It's not a phobia. You are not scared. You are an asshole,

Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as our prince of peace, of civil rights. We owe him something major that will keep his memory alive.

All you have to do is believe, then you will see everything.

What do I want to do? Acting wise? Well, there's a western that I want to do. There's a lot of producing that I want to do, projects that I have stacked up that are in my office that I'd like to get done.

Literacy could be the ladder out of poverty

Seeing is believing, but is it truth? Depends on your point-of-view. Are you listening, horsemen? When you emerge, and you will, I will be there... waiting. Because mark my words, you will get what's coming to you... in ways you can't expect... but very much deserve. Because once thing I believe in is an eye for an eye.

I had gone to school to work on technique and found it wasn't something that was really worthwhile to me, although it probably was.

I never said any of those quotes...

I got my first job as a card-carrying actor in New York in 1967. Before that, I was a very desperate wannabe.

If you sat down and you wrote a script, you may write something that's way beyond what you've ever seen me do, but if you thought of me to do it, I would be flattered to be asked to do something other than be wise.

Did you just call me old? I really prefer the word 'experienced'.

That is a big turn-on for me, a director who knows what he's doing and what he wants, and knows when he's gotten what he wants.

I've never had any intimate relationships with a dolphin.

First thing that always pops into my head regarding our president is that all of the people who are setting up this barrier for him ... they just conveniently forget that Barack had a mama, and she was white - very white American, Kansas, middle of America. There was no argument about who he is or what he is. America's first black president hasn't arisen yet. He's not America's first black president - he's America's first mixed-race president.

I'm not one who can write out a speech and remember all the names of the people that you need to thank because you need to thank all of those people.

I don't think that anyone learns anything. Well, I mean, you do always learn something if you have your eyes and ears open. You do learn something from every outing, every time that you go for it. But for me what actors do is interact and that's why you have to do that.

Audiences believe what you believe. It's a matter of believing yourself. If I believe me, then you've got no choice. None at all.

It can have an enormous effect because big budget movies can have big budget perks, and small budget movies have no perks, but what is the driving force, of course, is the script, and your part in it.

You do a movie. However long it lasts, it begins and it ends in a relatively short period of time. In a given period of time, let's say a year, you can have three, four, or five different experiences which is exciting.

I like the blues a lot. I grew up on it.

Hey, if I don't have a job, I don't know why I bother to get up. Any time the phone rings, I'm ready to go. What else am I going to do? See, I've never retired. I don't even know what it means.

I'm not sure that my upbringing has in itself informed my acting choices.

One of the things you can always depend on - this is one of the truths of the universe, and you heard it first from here - whatever we decide we want to do is what we do.

In my career? Me. I'm the boss. I'm the end all and be all. I'm the alpha and omega in that.

One universe, four forces, billions of galaxies. The precision and complexity of our world is enough to make even the famous cosmologist go just a little bit crazy. How does it all fit together? Is there a single, overarching design to the cosmos? And if we find it, will we glimpse the mind of God?

The accident was a horrible thing - but that horrible thing made Chris, at the end of his life, Superman. It's a happy irony if there is such a thing. I'm proud to have known him.

One day very soon, we'll be asked: what did we do. And we will say: we did everything we could ... we have to ... because if we don't there won't be anyone left to ask. We have never faced a crisis this big, that we have never had better ideas to solve. This is our only home. We can choose today to make a world of difference.

Nobody is trying to save energy. We're trying to shift our use of fuel. Forget saving energy; if we get the right kind of energy, there are endless amounts.

Most of the time it's the role. Sometimes it's the story and sometimes it just the paycheck. It's the little movies that come out as stories or the fact that I have work to go out, you know what I'm saying, you can only be out so long without work, you start getting antsy.

I want to thank everybody and anybody who ever had anything to do with the making of this picture.

When I was getting close to being accepted for pilot training, I was allowed to get in a jet airplane. I sat there looking at all those switches and dials and I got the distinct feeling that I was sitting in the nose of bomb. I realized my fantasies of flying and fighting were just that - fantasies.

I avoid seeing myself while I'm working on role so I won't see "me."

I joined the air force. I took to it immediately when I arrived there. I did three years, eight months, and ten days in all, but it took me a year and a half to get disabused of my romantic notions about it.

You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you.

I like the character roles. Somewhere back there I really came to the conclusion in my mind that the difference between acting and stardom was major. And that if you become a star, people are going to go to see you. If you remain an actor, they're going to go and see the story you're in.

I never think about awards or anything like that when I do a job. I was first named a best actor when I was 12 years old and it doesn't really mean anything when you get down to it, because there is no best. I don't get all that invovled. My chest puffs up as much as I can puff it up but I am not trying to be better than the person I am acting with. I am trying to be at least as good. That's how it works.

If we don't save the oceans, if we don't do something about what we're doing to the oceans, as well as the planet at large, we're going to be really sorry.

I believe in helping the planet survive, and that includes reaching out to help some of the disappearing creatures whose habitats we're destroying. It's up to us to somehow reverse that trend. I don't know how we'll achieve it, but we need to.

All my life, all my life that I can, as far back as I can remember, I saw my first movie when I was six years old. And since then I wanted to do that. I wanted to be a part of that.

They're talking about kids who have grand mal seizures, and they've discovered that marijuana eases that down to where these children can have a life. That right there, to me, says, 'Legalize it across the board!'

It's seldom that you get to work with one director more than once. I've worked with Clint Eastwood three times, but that's the only one that's happened with, simply because I adore his work.

It seems to me that I never grow unless I'm actually working with other actors who have shed whatever shell it is that keeps them insulated from each other.

I always knew that someone was going to come at me with a script to play God. It's just one of those things, the way your career is unfolding and all the talk about gravitas etc etc, so I had a strong feeling that someone was going to offer me the part of God. I was totally prepared to say, 'Thanks but no thanks,' unless it was a comedy.

If I could narrate your life I would , especially Jose's.

People don't want to hang around someone that you don't know how they're going to react to anything you do or say.

Actors cannot work against each other. It's totally impossible.

There are things that I would like to do, but I make a big distinction between liking to do something and wanting to do something. If there's something that I want to do I've done it. If there's something that comes up that I want to do I will do it.

I think one of the things when you're casting children is you're also casting their parents.

I try to keep my mind active. I'm a solitaire and puzzle addict. I exercise religiously. I don't do many things religiously and I've taken up golf to have something to do when I have nothing to do.

I have never acted he has never been cast in a romantic lead or has been cast opposite a female love interest in any movie he starred in.