Quotes from Sidney Poitier

I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions.

So I had to be careful. I recognized the responsibility that, whether I liked it or not, I had to accept whatever the obligation was. That was to behave in a manner, to carry myself in such a professional way, as if there ever is a reflection, it's a positive one.

To simply wake up every morning a better person than when I went to bed.

History passes the final judgment.

But my dad also was a remarkable man, a good person, a principled individual, a man of integrity.

I come from a great family. I've seen family life and I know how wonderful, how nurturing, and how wonderful it can be.

I decided in my life that I would do nothing that did not reflect positively on my father's life.

So I'm OK with myself, with history, my work, who I am and who I was.

I wouldn't change a single thing, because one change alters every moment that follows it.

My father was very big on marriage.

My father was the quintessential husband and dad.

I had to satisfy the action fans, the romantic fans, the intellectual fans. It was a terrific burden.

We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists ... in the loved one, perfection.

We do not reject our traditions, but we are willing to adapt to changing circumstances, when change we must. We are willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future.

We are what we are, and half of what we are is what we are not.

But listen, the day one decides to take the reins of one's own life into one's own hands

As a chief justice of the United States once said, blacks were three-fifths of a human, and only a full human being should have rights, the implication being that three-fifths of a human being was something fit to function only as a beast of burden. Well, that is a distortion exposing the enemies of logic and reason, and among them are mass hysteria, hate, prejudice, and ignorance. With

Stay from underfoot and don't get into any trouble. You hear me?" "Yes, ma'am, I hear you." Due to past experience, she may not have completely believed me. When

You don't have to become something you're not to be better than you were.

We all have a capacity for love, for kindness, for passion. We also have a capacity for the opposite, but love is infinitely more effective in the world than hate, although they exist as equal opposites.

There is a certain anger; it reaches such intensity that to express it fully would require homicidal rage—self-destructive, destroy-the-world rage—and its flame burns because the world is so unjust.

Even if you are someone used to wearing armor, guarded and afraid, I think love is such a strong force it would find a way through your protective guard. It will get to your heart, and you can't put any fences around that. As much as you might try, you simply can't. You're going to have other forces that will be operative at the same time if it is right for you to fall in love with this activity or individual or cause or process. There

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work," he said. "I want to achieve it by not dying." But

behind each word is a meaning. Some words are friendly; some are not. Some will cause you pain. Some will make you cry. Some will protect you. Some will deceive you. Still, words and their meaning can be indispensable in preparing you for the battles you must win in order to survive. The