Peter Ustinov Quotes

The lack of a personal core is at the base of such men, the inability to support doubt in any form, the fear of facing themselves...

Sex is a conversation carried out by other means.

Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, it is our duty to furnish it well.

Claggert: We must serve the law, sir, or give up the right and privilege of service. It is only within that law that we may use our discretions according to our rank. Captain Vere: You're so intelligent and so lucid for the rank you hold, Master At Arms. Claggert: I thank you, sir. Captain Vere: Yes, that's no flattery, Mr. Claggart. It's a melancholy fact. It's sad to see such qualities of mind bent to such a sorry purpose. What's the reason for it? Claggert: I am what I am, sir. And what the world has made me. Captain Vere: The world? The world demands that behind every peacemaker there be the gun, the gallows, the jail. Do you think it will always be so? Claggert: I have no reason not to, sir. Captain Vere: You live without hope? Claggert: I live. Captain Vere: But remember, Mr. Claggart, that even the man who wields the whip cannot defy the code we must obey and not be broken by it. That will be all.

Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.

The social sciences were for all those who had not yet decided what to do with their lives, and for all those whose premature frustrations led them into the sterile alleys of confrontation.

Like pornographers fretting under the burden of their wish dreams, these obscene buffoons suddenly found it unnecessary to assuage their fever among the pages of forbidden books or to pay for relief in some bordello, because a government of lonely fanatics swept into power and gradually lent official sanction to the dirtiest, saddest aspects of human nature, the lack of imagination which leads the ill to put their most libidinous nightmares into practice.

Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.

It is unfortunate for all that no moral issue has ever been clearer. Any attempt to plea-bargain with outlaws and renegades will only be at the expense of honor, decency and self-respect. The Serbs, are two-dimensional people with a craving for simplicity and an ideology so basic it can be understood without effort. They need enemies, not friends, to focus their two-dimensional ideas. Life for them is a simple tune, never an orchestration, or even a pleasant harmony. Animals make use of their resources with far greater felicity than these retorted creatures, whose subscription to the human race is well in arrears.

The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious

"I love history. It's so old." - Attributed to Peter Ustinov.

The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us.

Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.

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