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Striving for perfection is the greatest stopper there is. You'll be afraid you can't achieve it. It's your excuse to yourself for not doing anything. Instead, strive for excellence, doing your best.

Laurence Olivier

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Laurence Olivier
Age: 82 †
Born: 1907
Born: May 22
Died: 1989
Died: July 11
Actor
Character Actor
Director
Dramaturge
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Politician
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Dorking
Surrey
Baron Olivier of Brighton
The Lord Olivier
Instead
Achieve
Stopper
Striving
Greatest
Excellence
Anything
Excuse
Best
Strive
Perfection
Afraid

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We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are - politicians, playboys, cardinals and kings.
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Have a very good reason for everything you do.
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I don't know what is better than the work that is given to the actor-to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself.
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You think you're an artist prove it
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Don't be afraid to be outrageous the critics will shoot you down anyway.
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I believe that in a great city, or even in a small city or a village, a great theater is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.
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Work is life for me, it is the only point of life - and with it there is almost religious belief that service is everything.
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Without acting, I cannot breathe.
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Shakespeare - The nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God.
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My stage successes have provided me with the greatest moments outside myself, my film successes the best moments, professionally, within myself.
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Art is a little bit larger than life - it's an exhalation of life and I think you probably need a little touch of madness.
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In spite of a heavy disguise, a few days' growth on my face, dark glasses, a beret and one of William's jackets that fitted me not at all, as I emerged from a hotel in Lecce, a young fisherman pointed me out to his friends and said Lavrenche Olivaire. It was not all that amazing if you're not known in Italy, you're not known anywhere.
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The art of persuasion. The actor persuades himself, first, and through himself, the audience.
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Of all the things I've done in life, directing a motion picture is the most beautiful. It's the most exciting and the nearest than an interpretive craftsman, such as an actor can possibly get to being a creator.
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You must have - besides intuition and sensitivity - a cutting edge that allows you to reach what you need. Also, you have to know life - bastards included - and it takes a bit of one to know one, don't you think?
Laurence Olivier
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If you're an artist, you've got to prove it.
Laurence Olivier
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Life is enthusiasm, zest.
Laurence Olivier
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The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other points of the compass.
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I'd like people to remember me for a diligent expert workman. I think a poet is a workman. I think Shakespeare was a workman. And God's a workman. I don't think there's anything better than a workman.
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I am far from sure when I am acting and when I am not or, should I more frankly put it, when I am lying and when I am not. For what is acting but lying and what is good acting but convincing lying?
Laurence Olivier