Sarah Bernhardt Quotes

Energy creates energy. It is by spending myself that I become rich.

It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.

Art is not about something, Art is something

Your words are my food, your breath my wine. You are everything to me.

We ought to hate very rarely, as it is too fatiguing; remain indifferent to a great deal, forgive often and never forget.

Permanent success cannot be achieved except by incessant intellectual labour, always inspired by the ideal.

[When asked at age 79 why her Paris apartment was located up many flights of stairs at the top of the building:] It's the only way I can still make the hearts of men beat faster.

He who is incapable of feeling strong passions, of being shaken by anger, of living in every sense of the word, will never be a good actor.

To be a good actor... it is necessary to have a firmly tempered soul, to be surprised at nothing, to resume each minute the laborious task that has barely just been finished.

Oscar Wilde: 'Do you mind if I smoke?' Sarah Bernhardt: 'I don't care if you burn.'

Legend remains victorious in spite of history.

One should hate very little, because it's extremely fatiguing. One should despise much, forgive often and never forget. Pardon does not bring with it forgetfulness; at least not for me.

For the theatre one needs long arms... an artiste with short arms can never make a fine gesture.

I refuse the title of artist to those who owe their reputations to a physical deformity. I regard them as buffoons.

What matters poverty? What matters anything to him who is enamoured of our art? Does he not carry in himself every joy and every beauty?

I adore Chicago. It is the pulse of America.

I have often been asked why I am so fond of playing male parts. As a matter of fact, it is not male parts, but male brains that I prefer.

The theatre is the involuntary reflex of the ideas of the crowd.

The truth, the absolute truth, is that the chief beauty for the theatre consists in fine bodily proportions.

Although all new ideas are born in France, they are not readily adopted there. It seems that they must first commence to prosper in a foreign country.

Slow down? Rest? With all eternity before me?

I do love cricket - it's so very English.

The actor is too prone to exaggerate his powers; he wants to play Hamlet when his appearance is more suitable to King Lear.

Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.

New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion, and perhaps somebody's castle-roof perforated.

Me pray? Never! I'm an atheist.

... actors of the first water are not more plentiful than playwrights of genius.

Each action of the actor on the stage should be the visible concomitant of his thoughts.