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I prefer to choose which traditions to keep and which to let go.

Theodore Bikel

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Theodore Bikel
Age: 91 †
Born: 1924
Born: May 2
Died: 2015
Died: July 21
Actor
Businessperson
Film Actor
Musician
Politician
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Trade Unionist
Vienna
Austria
Theodore Meir Bikel
Traditions
Prefer
Tradition
Choose
Keep

More quotes by Theodore Bikel

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I always sang, I always acted, I always played.
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Audiences are audiences.
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I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.
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John Huston was the kind of director that totally left you alone. Not every actor always does it right, every time, but most of the time he was re-directing someone. He was making tight adjustments, and not even in terms of interpretation because he knew that by the time that the character had been filmed... well, he got it right when he cast you.
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But there is a difference here: When Jewish children are murdered, Arabs celebrate the deed. The death of an Arab child is no cause for celebration in Israel.
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What moves me is neither ethnocentric pride nor sectarian arrogance. I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures. But it is mine.
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Throughout my life I have cared as deeply about the songs of all peoples as I have about the rights of all peoples.
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I glory in the fact that a human being has multiple talents and exercises them all with a degree of integrity and artistic proficiency. That's what I do.
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Every actor wants to direct and produce, but I made a conscious decision when I was in college to understand the 'business' of 'show business.'
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An actor is supposed to emulate life. Instead, alas, many are imitating other actors. You don't fashion your knowledge of theatre or your approach to a role on the basis of what other actors have done. This kind of thinking is a great danger, especially in dealing with TV producers who frequently say things like, 'This is a Sean Connery type.'
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No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language.
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It's a sad thing to contemplate, but I'm the last surviving cast member of 'The African Queen.'
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As an artist I have an even more abiding interest in the compact between the Arts and Government.
Theodore Bikel
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You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.
Theodore Bikel
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Epistemology is the study of knowledge. By what conduit do we know what we know?
Theodore Bikel
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Right up to the middle of this century all perceptions of the world around us were delivered via the bookshelf or the paper route.
Theodore Bikel
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I am a Zionist, an ardent supporter of Israel, its defender when I deem Israel to be right and its critic when I deem it to be wrong.
Theodore Bikel
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After the advent of the written word, the masses who could not - or were not permitted to - read, were given sermons by the few who could.
Theodore Bikel
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You learn more from the flops than from the hits.
Theodore Bikel
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Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission.
Theodore Bikel