Austrian and American actor, bodybuilder, and politician (born 1947)
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July30, 1947) is an Austrian and American actor, businessman, politician, and former professional bodybuilder, known for his roles in high-profile action films. He served as the 38th governor of California from 2003 to 2011. Schwarzenegger began lifting weights at the age of 15 and won the Mr. Universe bodybuilding championship at the age of 20. He won the Mr. Olympia title seven times, tying with Phil Heath for the second-highest number of wins. Nicknamed the "Austrian Oak" in his bodybuilding days, he is regarded as one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time. He has written books and articles about bodybuilding, including the autobiographical Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder (1977) and The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding (1998). The Arnold Sports Festival, the second-most prestigious bodybuilding event after the Mr. Olympia competition, is named after him. He appeared in the bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron (1977), which set him on his way to a career in films. After retiring from bodybuilding, Schwarzenegger gained worldwide fame as a Hollywood action star. His breakthrough came with his starring role in Conan the Barbarian (1982), which was followed by a sequel, Conan the Destroyer (1984). At the height of his career, Schwarzenegger was known for his rivalry with Sylvester Stallone. Films in which he has appeared have grossed over $5.4 billion worldwide. He is the founder of the film production company Oak Productions. As a registered member of the Republican Party, Schwarzenegger chaired the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports during most of the George H. W. Bush administration. In 2003, he was elected governor of California in a special recall election to replace Gray Davis in a recall election. He received 48.6 percent of the vote, 17 points ahead of the runner-up, Cruz Bustamante of the Democratic Party. He was sworn in on November 17 to serve the remainder of Davis' term, and was reelected in the 2006 gubernatorial election with an increased vote share of 55.9 percent to serve a full term. In 2011, he reached his term limit as governor and returned to acting. As of 2025, Schwarzenegger and insurance commissioner Steve Poizner are the last Republicans to win or hold statewide office in California, having both won their respective elections in 2006.
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In sports, you learn competition means go after it, win it. And not to let anything else interfere. It's something you learn, and it sticks with you. I consider myself an expert in looking into a particular idea or goal and then going after it without anything else in mind... It's always the same kind of thing. You pick a goal, and then you just go after it, accomplish it, and get satisfaction out of that.
My hair was pulled. I was hit with belts. So was the kid next door, and so was the kid next door. It was just the way it was. Many of the children I've seen were broken by their parents, which was the German-Austrian mentality. Break the will. They didn't want to create an individual.... It was all about conforming. I was one who did not conform and whose will could not be broken. Therefore I became a rebel. Every time I got hit, and every time someone said, 'You can't do this,' I said, 'This is not going to be for much longer, because I'm going to move out of here... of course, I had no plan how.
I was 15 years old and I looked in the mirror. I was standing there in front of the mirror, totally naked. There was one particular part of my body that was bigger than the rest of it. I'm a man of perfection, and so I said to myself, 'I've got to bring the rest of the body up to the standard of this one part.' And so that's when I started exercising. Very simple.
Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. When you make an impasse passable, that is strength. But you must have ego, the kind of ego which makes you think of yourself in terms of superlatives. You must want to be the greatest. We are all starved for compliments. So we do things that get positive feedback.
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America is so money-oriented. (Thank God! It's always helped me!) But it has its disadvantages because the psychiatrists know their business doesn't mean a thing if there are no sick people around, and so they make everybody feel guilty. You know, all New York City is running to a psychiatrist. All America thinks it has sexual hang ups. Everybody's running to shrinks.
What I want to do is make Americans aware that they're fucked-up when they equate everything a person does with some sexual trip. You know, if you hold a pencil in your hand, it's a phallic symbol and you really want to hold a cock in your hand. And a football coach doesn't really want to be a coach, he likes to slap football players' asses...he's a latent homosexual. And it goes on and on and on, all the fucking time.
I get laid on purpose. I can't sleep before any competition and I'm up all night, anyway, so instead of staring at the ceiling I figure I might as well find somebody and fuck... we had girls backstage giving head, then all of us went out and I won. It didn't bother me at all; in fact, I went out there feeling like King Kong.
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The greatest feeling you can get in a gym, or the most satisfying feeling you can get in a gym is the pump. Let's say you trained your biceps: blood is rushing into your muscle, and that would be called a pump. Your muscles get this really tight feeling, like your skin is going to explode any minute [...] It blows air and it feels different, it feels fantastic. It's as satisfying to me as cumming is, as having sex with a woman and cumming. So can you believe how much I am in heaven? I'm getting the feeling of cumming in a gym, I'm getting the feeling of cumming at home, I am, like, getting the feeling of cumming in the gym, I'm getting the feeling of cumming at home, I'm getting the feeling of cumming backstage. When I pump up, when I pose out in front of 5,000 people, I get the same feeling, so I am cumming day and night. It's terrific, right? So I am in heaven.