Peter Ustinov Quotes

Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.

In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.

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

Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy.

Playwrights are like men who have been dining for a month in an Indian restaurant. After eating curry night after night, they deny the existence of asparagus.

To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.

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.

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

There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.

Lieutenant Seymour: Wyatt, we do not deal with justice here, but with the law. Lieutenant Wyatt: Was not the one conceived to serve the other?

The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come

Irrespective of nationality, soldiers are always open to the same discomfort and to the same comradeship the world over. I'll make things easy for you if you make things easy for me. That is, after all the unwritten law of the barracks.

The sea is calm you said. Peaceful. Calm above, but below a world of gliding monsters preying on their fellows. Murderers, all of them. Only the strongest teeth survive. And who's to tell me it's any different here on board, or yonder on dry land.

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.