Quotes By Charlie Chaplin

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

Why should poetry have to make sense?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.

The glamour of it all! New York! America!

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

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

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

In the end, everything is a gag.

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.

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

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.

We think too much and feel too little.

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.

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

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

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