Theodore Bikel Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to action. Such films do battle for our very soul.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“I am a universalist, passionately devoted to the cause of equality within the human family.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“I tried for a while to be an agricultural worker and was hopelessly bored. To me it was meaningless. I would stand around in heaps of manure and sings about the beauty of the work I wasn't doing.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“All too often arrogance accompanies strength, and we must never assume that justice is on the side of the strong. The use of power must always be accompanied by moral choice.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“But, when I toil in the field of Jewish culture which I frequently do, I am indeed a Jewish artist.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“As an artist I have an even more abiding interest in the compact between the Arts and Government.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“Epistemology is the study of knowledge. By what conduit do we know what we know?”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“I am not a specialist but a general practitioner in the world of the arts.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“The play is always fresh to me. It's not the audience's fault that I've said the words before.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“I prefer to choose which traditions to keep and which to let go.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“On the stage you're there, it's live. There's a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“I'm exceedingly proud of being an actor, but I never recommend it to anyone.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“If I have one vanity wish, it would be to direct. It's the only thing I haven't done yet that I would like to.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“In my world, history comes down to language and art.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“I do not know who there is among us that can claim to know God's purpose and God's intent.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“You always draw on your experiences with live audiences to know how to do comedy on films. You're working for a laugh that may or may not come six months later, but you're working in a vacuum at the time you are doing it.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“While we all could agree that the Zionist ideal is alive and well, there is serious doubt whether the Zionist movement can be said to be an ongoing proposition, fragmented as its components are in ideology and in practice.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“Throughout my life I have cared as deeply about the songs of all peoples as I have about the rights of all peoples.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“I do prefer the stage. It's really the granddaddy of them all.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“You cannot please all of the people all of the time, and that is truer in the arts than anywhere else.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“It's a sad thing to contemplate, but I'm the last surviving cast member of 'The African Queen.'”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“I know for certain of only one commandment, one obligation, that God imposes upon us, and that is to be compassionate toward other human beings.”
-- Theodore Bikel -
“I am not, and have never been, in favor of boycotting Israel.”
-- Theodore Bikel
