Charlie Chaplin

Wars, conflict, it's all business. "One murder makes a villain. Millions a hero". Numbers sanctify.

I am at peace with God; my conflict is with man.

I am for people. I can't help it.

I remain just one thing, and one thing only - and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.

I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.

All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.

Friends have asked how I came to engender this American antagonism. My prodigious sin was, and still is, being a non-conformist. Although I am not a Communist I refused to fall in line by hating them. Secondly, I was opposed to the Committee on Un-American Activities - a dishonest phrase to begin with, elastic enough to wrap around the throat and strangle the voice of any American citizen whose honest opinion is a minority of one.

I am not religious in the dogmatic sense ... I neither believe nor disbelieve in anything.

I believe that faith is a precursor of all our ideas. Without faith, there never could have evolved hypothesis, theory, science or mathematics. I believe that faith is an extension of the mind. It is the key that negates the impossible. To deny faith is to refute oneself and the spirit that generates all our creative forces. My faith is in the unknown, in all that we do not understand by reason; I believe that what is beyond our comprehension is a simple fact in other dimensions, and that in the realm of the unknown there is an infinite power for good.

I am what I am:
an individual, unique and different, with a lineal history of an ancestral promptings and urgings, a history of dreams, desires, and of special experiences, of all of which I am the sum total.

Life is a beautiful, magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish. ... The trouble is you won't fight. You've given up. But there's something just as inevitable as death. And that's life. Think of the power of the universe - turning the Earth, growing the trees. That's the same power within you - if you'll only have the courage and the will to use it.

I hope we shall abolish war and settle all differences at the conference table... I hope we shall abolish all hydrogen and atom bombs before they abolish us first.

I am not a political man and I have no political convictions. I am an individual and a believer in liberty. That is all the politics I have. On the other hand I am not a super-patriot. Super-patriotism leads to Hitlerism - and we've had our lesson there. I don't want to create a revolution - I just want to create a few more films.

Look up to the sky You'll never find rainbows If you're looking down.

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

In which Chaplin plays the roles of "Adenoid Hynkel", the dictator of Tomania, and "A Jewish Barber" the hero of the tale

This is a story of a period between two World Wars - an interim in which insanity cut loose. Liberty took a nose dive, and humanity was kicked around somewhat.

Hynkel, the dictator, ruled the nation with an iron fist. Under the new emblem of the double cross, liberty was banished, free speech was suppressed and only the voice of Hynkel was heard.

[Hynkel addressing the crowds, referring to his colleagues:
clearly modelled upon Göring and Goebbels]Hynkel: Herring shouldn smelten fine from Garbitsch, und Garbitsch shouldn smelten fine from Herring. Herring und Garbitsch... [He clasps his hands together] Translator: His excellency has just referred to the struggles of his early days shared by his two loyal comrades.

Schultz:
You must speak.Jewish barber: I can't.Schultz: It's our only hope.

Closing speech of the Jewish barber, after being mistaken for Hynkel. - Full text, video and audio online at American Rhetoric

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness - not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another.In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think or what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural!Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the 17th Chapter of St. Luke it is written:
"the Kingdom of God is within man" - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite![Cheers]Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up, Hannah. The clouds are lifting. The sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world, a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed and brutality. Look up, Hannah. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up, Hannah. Look up.

The Great Dictator (1940):
Hannah: Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.

Disputed:
"By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none."

Misattributed:
The inmates have taken over the asylum!

Misattributed:
A day without laughter is a day wasted.

Misattributed: As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth. Today, I know, this is “AUTHENTICITY".