Quotes from Peter Ustinov

Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much.

I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilized music in the world.

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

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.

The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us

Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our one duty is to furnish it well.

Ein Philosoph ist ein Mann, der in Ermangelung einer Frau die ganze Welt umarmt.

Bildung ist wichtig, vor allem wenn es gilt, Vorurteile abzubauen. Wenn man schon ein Gefangener seines eigenen Geistes ist, kann man wenigstens dafür sorgen, dass die Zelle anständig möbliert ist.

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

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.

The only reason I made a commercial for American Express was to pay off my American Express Bill" - Peter Ustinov, 1921-2004

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.

Politicians only get to the top because they have no qualifications to detain them at the bottom.

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

I am an optimist, unrepentant and militant. After all, in order not to be a fool an optimist must know how sad a place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day.

The young need old men. They need men who are not ashamed of age, not pathetic imitations of themselves. ... Parents are the bones on which children sharpen their teeth.

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.

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

Pavarotti is not vain, but conscious of being unique.

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.

Did you know that every two hours the nations of this world spend as much on armaments as they spend on the children of this world every year?

I can never forgive God for having invented the French

A twinge of conscience is a glimpse of God.