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
No matter how bad things are, they can always be worse. So what if my stroke left me with a speech impediment? Moses had one, and he did all right.
Interpretation
Challenges can always be viewed from a different perspective, and adversity can lead to resilience.
This quote emphasizes the importance of perspective in the face of adversity. Kirk Douglas reflects on his own struggles with a speech impediment, acknowledging that while his situation is difficult, it could be worse. By referencing Moses, who also had a speech issue yet accomplished great things, Douglas reminds us that challenges can be overcome and should not define our potential or worth.
In practice
During a motivational speech about resilience.
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.
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.
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.
I didn't start out to be a movie star. I started out to be an actor.
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?
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!
The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave.
Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.
Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them.
Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.
Aspire to be like Mt. Fuji, with such a broad and solid foundation that the strongest earthquake cannot move you, and so tall that the greatest enterprises of common men seem insignificant from your lofty perspective. With your mind as high as Mt Fuji you can see all things clearly. And you can see all the forces that shape events; not just the things happening near to you.
The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
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