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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 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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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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I always sang, I always acted, I always played.
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While we all could agree that the Zionist ideal is alive and well, there is serious doubt whether the Zionist movement can be said to be an ongoing proposition, fragmented as its components are in ideology and in practice.
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I know for certain of only one commandment, one obligation, that God imposes upon us, and that is to be compassionate toward other human beings.
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Must we be put to shame by much smaller and poorer countries, by Ireland, France, Austria or Sweden, who have understood that a nation's support of its arts is a matter of both national pride and cultural survival?
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In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.
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I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.
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I do not know who there is among us that can claim to know God's purpose and God's intent.
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.
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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
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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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If I have one vanity wish, it would be to direct. It's the only thing I haven't done yet that I would like to.
Theodore Bikel
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Audiences are audiences.
Theodore Bikel
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You can't expect the entire world to come to New York to see you. You have to travel to them.
Theodore Bikel
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We Jews have a special attachment to the Book. The study of page after page in tomes yellowing with age was obligatory.
Theodore Bikel
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You always draw on your experiences with live audiences to know how to do comedy on films. You're working for a laugh that may or may not come six months later, but you're working in a vacuum at the time you are doing it.
Theodore Bikel
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I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation.
Theodore Bikel
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I created the role of Captain Von Trapp.
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