Peter Ustinov Quotes

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

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

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

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

Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.

The social sciences were for all those who had not yet decided what to do with their lives, and for all those whose premature frustrations led them into the sterile alleys of confrontation.

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

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

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.

Pavarotti is not vain, but conscious of being unique.

Robert Vavra is one of these artists, part magician, part alchemist, who is able to create a series of photographs in unforgettable compositions. Only visible are the dunes, the blinding fields of flowers and the vast sky, the epic intimacy of Robert Vavra's vision.

We used to have lots of questions to which there were no answers. Now, with the computer, there are lots of answers to which we haven't thought up questions.

Life was cheap in the Middle Ages. It has become cheaper since. It is only in specific battles for specific lives that our culture is put to the test, and with it our humanity.

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

Playwrights are like men who have been dining for a month in an Indian restaurant. After eating curry night after night, they deny the existence of asparagus.

World Government is not only possible, it is inevitable; and when it comes, it will appeal to patriotism in its truest sense,in its only sense, the patriotism of humans who love their national heritages so deeply that they wish to preserve them in safety for the common good.

The stupidity of a stupid man is exercised in a restricted field; the stupidity of an intelligent man has a much wider diffusion, and a far greater effect, aided as it is by the element of surprise.

Two members of my profession who are not urgently needed by my profession, Mr. Ronald Reagan and Mr. George Murphy, entered politics, and they've done extremely well. Since there has been no reciprocal tendency in the other direction, it suggests to me that our job is still more difficult than their new one.

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

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

Marriage is like a three-speed gearbox affection, friendship, love. It is not advisable to crash your gears and go right through to love straightaway. You need to ease your way through. The basis of love is respect, and that needs to be learned from affection and friendship.

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

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

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

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

The truth is an ambition which is beyond us.

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

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.

The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us

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

I believe that the Jews have made a contribution to the human condition out of all proportion to their numbers: I believe them to be an immense people. Not only have they supplied the world with two leaders of the stature of Jesus Christ and Karl Marx, but they have even indulged in the luxury of following neither one nor the other.

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.

Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died.

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

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

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.

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

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

I hate being moved. I hate that man who came in. So self-righteous, so cruel. He made fun of me, that's why I cried. You never did that. You led me into temptation by your - politeness.

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

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

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

Did you know that the worldwide food shortage that threatens up to five hundred million children could be alleviated at the cost of only one day, only one day, of modern warfare.

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.

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

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.

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

People are annoyed with the Chinese for not respecting more human rights. But with a population that size it's very difficult to have the same attitude to human rights.

I had started by imitating a parrot, which is unusual, in that a parrot is supposed to imitate you. By taking the initiative you allow the parrot no alternative but to be itself, which proves again that attack is often the best defence.

There are experts in little things but there are no experts in big things. There are experts in this fact and that fact but there are no moral experts.

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

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.

Artificial glamor-false eyelashes, that sort of thing-usually is put on to hide a vacuum. The most beautiful face can only look vacuous if it masks an empty head.

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

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

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.

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

Please keep off the grass.

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

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

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

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

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious

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

A twinge of conscience is a glimpse of God.