#shakes

I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare. ↗

— Alan Cumming

#american actors #i #i think #intimidated #more

To date or not to date that is the question. It's almost as important as Shakespeare's to be or not to be which deals with death. ↗

— Al Goldstein

#date #deals #death #important #question

I felt a little green, because Shakespeare writes the thought process within the text; it was tricky not to think of what to say and then say it, and instead just deliver the lines. ↗

— Neil Patrick Harris

#deliver #felt #green #i #instead

Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance. ↗

— James Joyce

#ground #happy #hunting #lost #minds

The nearest figure to myself would be Shakespeare. ↗

— Michael Tippett

#myself #nearest #shakespeare #would

Then I got out of the service, and I was going to be a Shakespearean actor. ↗

— Harvey Korman

#going #got #i #out #service

How well Shakespeare knew how to improve and exalt little circumstances, when he borrowed them from circumstantial or vulgar historians. ↗

— Horace Walpole

#circumstances #exalt #historians #how #improve

I never wanted to become an actress because I'd read great literature or seen great Shakespeare. It was more just wanting to understand what the people were really like, why they said all the strange things they did. ↗

— Julie Walters

#because #become #did #great #great literature

Why should we place Christ at the top and summit of the human race? Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he more patient, more charitable, than Epictetus? Was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, than Epicurus? In what respect was he the superior of Zoroaster? Was he gentler than Lao-tsze, more universal than Confucius? Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of Zeno? Did he express grander truths than Cicero? Was his mind subtler than Spinoza’s? Was his brain equal to Kepler’s or Newton’s? Was he grander in death – a sublimer martyr than Bruno? Was he in intelligence, in the force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal of Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race? They found that Christ was a new name for an old biography; that he was not a life, but a legend; not a man, but a myth. ↗

— Robert G. Ingersoll

#bruno #buddha #cicero #kindness #patience

A self-destructive man feels completely alienated, utterly alone. He's an outsider to the human community. He thinks to himself, "I must be insane." What he fails to realize is that society has, just as he does, a vested interest in considerable losses and catastrophes. These wars, famines, floods and quakes meet well-defined needs. Man wants chaos. In fact, he has to have it. Depression, strife, riots, murder - all this dread. We're irresistibly drawn to that almost orgiastic state created out of death and destruction. It's in all of us. We revel in it. Sure, the media tries to put a sad face on these things and paints them up as great human tragedies. But we all know the function of the media has never been to eliminate the evils of the world - no! Their job is to persuade us to accept those evils and get used to living with them. The powers that be want us to be passive observers, and they haven't given us any other options outside the occasional, purely symbolic, participatory act of voting. "You want the puppet on the right or the puppet on the left?" I feel that the time has come to project my own inadequacies and dissatisfactions into the sociopolitical and scientific schemes, let my own lack of a voice be heard. ↗

— Richard Linklater

#j-c-shakespeare #waking-life #death