"Drama is based on the Mistake. I think someone is my friend when he really is my enemy, that I am free to marry a woman when in fact she is my mother, that this person is a chambermaid when it is a young nobleman in disguise, that this well-dressed young man is rich when he is really a penniless adventurer, or that if I do this such and such a result will follow when in fact it results in something very different. All good drama has two movements, first the making of the mistake, then the discovery that it was a mistake."

Auden, W. H. on theater   

"It's one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work -- the night watchman."

Bankhead, Tallulah on theater   

"The novel is more of a whisper, whereas the stage is a shout."

Holman, Robert on theater   

"The theater, bringing impersonal masks to life, is only for those who are virile enough to create new life: either as a conflict of passions subtler than those we already know, or as a complete new character."

Jarry, Alfred on theater   

"In a good play every speech should be as fully flavored as a nut or apple."

Synge, J. M. on theater   

"Every now and then, when you're on stage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It's a sound you can't get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you've hit them where they live."

Winters, Shelley on theater   

"The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life."

Wilde, Oscar on theater
3 fans of this quote   

"I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won't contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That's what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act."

Welles, Orson on theater   

"A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships."

Vidal, Gore on theater   

"In a drama of the highest order there is little food for censure or hatred; it teaches rather self-knowledge and self-respect."

Shelley, Percy Bysshe on theater   

"The theatre, for all its artifices, depicts life in a sense more truly than history, because the medium has a kindred movement to that of real life, though an artificial setting and form."

Santayana, George on theater   

"The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel, but do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched unfledged comrade."

Shakespeare, William on friends and friendship   

"A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow."

Shakespeare, William on friends and friendship
38 fans of this quote   

"The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. [Measure For Measure]"

Shakespeare, William on fools and foolishness
22 fans of this quote   

"Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear."

Shakespeare, William on fear
5 fans of this quote   

"They say men are molded out of faults, and for the most, become much more the better; for being a little bad. [Measure For Measure]"

Shakespeare, William on faults
4 fans of this quote   

"All that live must die, passing through nature to eternity."

Shakespeare, William on death
23 fans of this quote   

"Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold."

Keller, Helen on anger
8 fans of this quote   

"Suffering is the ancient law of love; there is not quest without pain; there is no lover who is not also a martyr."

Suso, Heinrich on suffering
8 fans of this quote   

"Come, let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me. All my sad captains. Fill our bowls once more. Let's mock the midnight bell."

Shakespeare, William on farewells
7 fans of this quote   

"A walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more."

Shakespeare, William on futility
4 fans of this quote   

"The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power."

Shakespeare, William on greatness
6 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"I had rather have a fool make me merry, than experience make me sad."

Shakespeare, William on happiness
5 fans of this quote   

"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so."

Gandhi, Mahatma on law and lawyers
12 fans of this quote   

"Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame."

Gandhi, Mahatma on indolence
9 fans of this quote   

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."

Gandhi, Mahatma on humankind
26 fans of this quote   

"The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave. His fetters fall... freedom and slavery are mental states."

Gandhi, Mahatma on freedom
16 fans of this quote   

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right."

Gandhi, Mahatma on freedom
17 fans of this quote   

"It is best to love wisely, no doubt: but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all."

Thackeray, William M. on infatuation
25 fans of this quote   

"One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love -- any love -- reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness."

Pavese, Cesare on infatuation
19 fans of this quote   

"Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."

Donne, John on infatuation
9 fans of this quote   

"What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god -- the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!"

Shakespeare, William on humankind
4 fans of this quote   

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on achievement
191 fans of this quote   

"We will either find a way, or make one."

Hannibal on achievement
82 fans of this quote   

"One must marry one's feelings to one's beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one's life."

Hilsum, Etty on achievement
16 fans of this quote   

"A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve."

Holmes, Oliver Wendell on achievement
23 fans of this quote   

"God will not look you over for medal, degrees or diplomas, but for scars."

Hubbard, Elbert on achievement
51 fans of this quote   

"There is a woman at the beginning of all great things."

Lamartine, Alphonse De on achievement
26 fans of this quote   

"Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait."

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth on achievement
18 fans of this quote   

"Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds."

Marden, Orison Swett on achievement
54 fans of this quote