I'm an actor; I have made my living by acting, and I almost think I owe it to the public to express my feelings and not as a character on a screen but as myself.
Kirk DouglasRead
My four sons all knew I was a Jew, but they were allowed to be whatever they wanted to be. The only thing important to me was that they be good people who help other people, because all religion should try to make you a better person and a more caring person. Whenever religion does that for you, it's a good religion.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of religion is to foster goodness and caring in individuals.
Kirk Douglas emphasizes the importance of moral character over religious affiliation. He believes that the core purpose of any religion should be to cultivate virtues that promote kindness and assistance to others, suggesting that a religion's value is measured by its ability to inspire goodness in people, irrespective of the specific faith they follow.
Themes
ReligionGoodnessKindnessCharacterPeople
In practice
Example use cases
During a community event, when discussing the importance of compassion, I shared this quote to illustrate the essence of goodness.
More from Kirk Douglas
All quotes →Cancer does give you a new rejuvenation. I know what it's like to be down. I lost a couple of good friends - Larry Hagman and Nick Ashford - who had the same type of cancer that I did, and that makes you think.
Kirk DouglasRead
Too often, I have not been what I wanted to be; I've succumbed to pressures. Yes, I have. The things I've done that I liked, I've always done against advice.
Kirk DouglasRead
I didn't start out to be a movie star. I started out to be an actor.
Kirk DouglasRead
People are composed of many things, and in my work, what influences me is the complexity of people - the chiaroscuro of dark and light. When I play a strong guy, I try to find, where is he weak? And, conversely, when I play a weak guy, where is he strong?
Kirk DouglasRead
When you have a stroke, you must talk slowly to be understood, and I've discovered that when I talk slowly, people listen. They think I'm going to say something important!
Kirk DouglasRead
Similar quotes
The great paradox of the 21st century is that, in this age of powerful technology, the biggest problems we face internationally are problems of the human soul.
Ralph PetersRead
Manners is the key thing. Say, for instance, when you're growing up, you're walking down the street, you've got to tell everybody good morning. Everybody. You can't pass one person.
Usain BoltRead
Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs.
Howard ZinnRead
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.
Adrienne RichRead
Suicide is the means of men whose resilience has been eaten away by rust, the rust of the daily round. They were born for action, but they have delayed their action; so action turns back on them with the swing of a pendulum. Suicide is an act, the act of those who have not been able to accomplish others. It is an act of faith, like all acts. Faith in one’s neighbor, in the existence of one’s neighbor, in the reality of the self and the other selves.
Pierre Drieu La RochelleRead
How prone poor Humanity is to dam up the minutest remnants of its freedom, and build an artificial roof to prevent it looking up to the clear blue sky.
E. T. A. HoffmannRead