Theodore Bikel Quotes:- Theodore Bikel (May 2, 1924 – July 21, 2015) was an Austrian-American actor, folk singer, musician, composer, unionist and political activist.
Inspirational Theodore Bikel Quotes
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
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.
Theodore Bikel
We Jews have a special attachment to the Book. The study of the page after page in tomes yellowing with age was obligatory.
Theodore Bikel
Having come to live in this age is as though one were to have entered another country. Learn its language or risk being left out.
Theodore Bikel
By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation, and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to action. Such films do battle for our very soul.
Theodore Bikel
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
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.
Theodore Bikel
Throughout my life, I have cared as deeply about the songs of all peoples as I have about the rights of all peoples.
Theodore Bikel
We live in a world of guns, bombs, and terror. To conquer hate seems a nigh-impossible task.
Theodore Bikel
I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles, and words.
Theodore Bikel
I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.
Theodore Bikel
I do not know who there is among us that can claim to know God’s purpose and God’s intent.
Theodore Bikel
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.
Theodore Bikel
I am not a specialist but a general practitioner in the world of the arts.
Theodore Bikel
I prefer to choose which traditions to keep and which to let go.
Theodore Bikel
You learn more from the flops than from the hits.
Theodore Bikel
I’m exceedingly proud of being an actor, but I never recommend it to anyone.
Theodore Bikel
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
I created the role of Captain Von Trapp.
Theodore Bikel
You don’t really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.
Theodore Bikel
Audiences are audiences.
Theodore Bikel
I always sang, I always acted, I always played.
Theodore Bikel
I tried for a while to be an agricultural worker and was hopelessly bored. I would stand around in heaps of manure and sing about the beauty of the work I wasn’t doing.
Theodore Bikel
I do prefer the stage. It’s really the granddaddy of them all.
Theodore Bikel
On the stage you’re there, it’s live. There’s a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.
Theodore Bikel
When something is moving you get that intake of breath and that stillness from the audience.
Theodore Bikel
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
The play is always fresh to me. It’s not the audience’s fault that I’ve said the words before.
Theodore Bikel
Every actor wants to direct.
Theodore Bikel
You can’t expect the entire world to come to New York to see you. You have to travel to them.
Theodore Bikel
All too often arrogance accompanies strength, and we must never assume that justice is on the side of the strong. The use of power must always be accompanied by moral choice.
Theodore Bikel
As an artist I have an even more abiding interest in the compact between the Arts and Government.
Theodore Bikel
Famous Theodore Bikel Quotes
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.
Theodore Bikel
But, when I toil in the field of Jewish culture which I frequently do, I am indeed a Jewish artist.
Theodore Bikel
For I firmly believe that Jewish life, indeed any communal life, can only be organized according to democratic principles.
Theodore Bikel
I am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us back a sense of wonder.
Theodore Bikel
I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures or that the Jewish song is better than the song of my neighbor.
Theodore Bikel
I remain convinced that I can be a true universalist only when I am a better Jew.
Theodore Bikel
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?
Theodore Bikel
No doubt unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed into being by mere declarations.
Theodore Bikel
No movement can afford to be caught in a time warp and exist in a state of suspended animation.
Theodore Bikel
One might have thought the world would stop ascribing moral equivalence between acts of terrorism and acts of punishing terrorism. It has not happened that way.
Theodore Bikel
Best Theodore Bikel Quotes
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.
Theodore Bikel
No doubt, unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed by mere declarations.
Theodore Bikel
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+
I am first, and foremost, an actor. That’s what I am. To me, a song is a mini-drama. My musical ability informs the actor as well because it gives me a sense of timing that non-musicians don’t have. So, one hand washes the other.
Theodore Bikel
It’s a sad thing to contemplate, but I’m the last surviving cast member of ‘The African Queen.’
Theodore Bikel
I don’t speak out because I am an actor nor will I keep silent because I am an actor. I respect my profession, but it endows me with no special privileges; but it also does not limit me or muzzle me. I am a person and a citizen with the attendant responsibilities of voice and vote.
Theodore Bikel
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.’
Theodore Bikel
