Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on the 16th of April, 1889 in Walworth, London, United Kingdom. Charlie Chaplin was a comedic British actor who became one of the biggest stars of the 20th century’s silent-film era. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, “The Tramp”, and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry.
Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in, and composed the music for most of his films. He was a perfectionist, and his financial independence enabled him to spend years on the development and production of a picture. He received an Honorary Academy Award for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century”. Charles Chaplin died on the 25th of December, 1977 in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.
Below, you will find a collection of popular Charlie Chaplin quotes and sayings.
60 Charlie Chaplin Quotes About Life, Love & Pain
“You have to believe in yourself, that’s the secret. Even when I was in the orphanage, when I was roaming the street trying to find enough to eat, even then I thought of myself as the greatest actor in the world. I had to feel the exuberance that comes from utter confidence in yourself. Without it, you go down to defeat.”
― Charlie Chaplin
― Charlie Chaplin
“My pain may be the reason for somebody’s laugh. But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody’s pain.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Like everyone else I am what I am: an individual, unique and different, with a lineal history of ancestral promptings and urgings; a history of dreams, desires, and of special experiences, all of which I am the sum total.”― Charlie Chaplin
“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.”
― Charlie Chaplin
― Charlie Chaplin
“Life is a play that does not allow testing. So, sing, cry, dance, laugh and live intensely, before the curtain closes and the piece ends with no applause.”― Charles Chaplin
“A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.”― Charlie Chaplin
“In the creation of comedy, it is paradoxical that tragedy stimulates the spirit of ridicule; because ridicule, I suppose is an attitude of defiance: we must laugh in the face of our helplessness against the forces of nature – or go insane”― Charlie Chaplin
“As I began to love myself I recognized that my mind can disturb me and it can make me sick. But as I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally. Today I call this connection “WISDOM OF THE HEART”
― Charlie Chaplin
― Charlie Chaplin
“I neither believe nor disbelieve in anything. That which can be imagined is as much an approximation to truth as that which can be proved by mathematics.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Patriotism is too deep a feeling to depict in the posing for a photograph.”― Charlie Chaplin
“The people are applauding you because none of them understands you and applauding me because everybody understands me. [Charlie Chaplin to Albert Einstein]”― Charles Chaplin
“I have admired the romantic elegance of the Place de la Concorde in Paris, have felt the mystic message from a thousand glittering windows at sunset in New York, but to me the view of the London Thames from our hotel window transcends them all for utilitarian grandeur – something deeply human.”― Charles Chaplin
“Although some we rarely see, the thought of them is comforting, like the pleasure of knowing there is a mooring somewhere, if occasionally we want to sail into port.”― Charles Chaplin
“In San Francisco one felt the spirit of optimism and enterprise. Los Angeles, on the other hand, was an ugly city, hot and oppressive, and the people looked sallow and anaemic. It was a much warmer climate but had not the freshness of San Francisco; nature has endowed the north of California with resources that will endure and flourish when Hollywood has disappeared into the prehistoric tar-pits of Wilshire Boulevard.”― Charlie Chaplin
“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.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Acquaintances were willing to enter into the warmest of friendships and share my problems as though they were relatives. It was all very flattering, but my nature does not respond to such intimacy. I like friends as I like music – when I am in the mood. Such freedom, however, was at the price of occasional loneliness.”
― Charlie Chaplin
― Charlie Chaplin
“Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.” – Charlie Chaplin
“I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.” – Charlie Chaplin
“To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune.” – Charlie Chaplin
“All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” – Charlie Chaplin
“I’d sooner be called a successful crook than a destitute monarch.” – Charlie Chaplin
“The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.” – Charlie Chaplin
“Why should poetry have to make sense?” – Charlie Chaplin
“I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can’t help it. It’s the truth.” – Charlie Chaplin
“I remember when one dressed the part for the West End, and strolled with yellow gloves and a walking-stick. But that world has gone, and another takes its place, eyes see differently, emotions react to other themes. Men weep at jazz, and violence has become s3xual. Time marches on.”― Charlie Chaplin
“What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.”― Charles Chaplin
“And I am going to have another opportunity. I am going to have a week-end with him at his home in Easton, a week-end with Wells at home, with just his family. That alone is worth the entire trip from Los Angeles to Europe.”― Charlie Chaplin
“procreation is nature’s principal occupation, and every man, whether he be young or old, when meeting every woman measures the potentiality of s3x between them.”― Charles Chaplin
“I told him that it was very fine for well-fed, over-paid actors flaunting toughness at these deprived people, who are gentle and nice and, if ever tough, only so because of environment. I asked him how tough he would be if he were living the life that some of these unfortunate families must live. How easy for him, with five meals a day beneath that thrust-out chest with his muscles trained and perfect, trying to start something with these people. Of course they were not tough, but when it comes to four years of War, when it comes to losing an arm or a leg, then they are tough. But they are not going around looking for fights unless there is a reason.”― Charlie Chaplin
“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.”― Charlie Chaplin
“That’s all any of us are: amateurs. We don’t live long enough to be anything else.”― Charles Chaplin
“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.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Think about yourself at least once in your life otherwise you may miss the best comedy in this world.”― Charlie Chaplin
“I believe in the power of laughter and tears as an antidote to hatred and terror”― Charles Chaplin
“Perfect love is the most beautiful of all frustrations because it is more than one can express.”
― Charlie Chaplin
― Charlie Chaplin
“Life can be wonderful if you’re not afraid of it. All it takes is courage, imagination … and a little dough”― Charlie Chaplin
“You need Power, only when you want to do something harmful otherwise Love is enough to get everything done.”― Charlie Chaplin
“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! 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 . . .”― Charles Chaplin
“I don’t think the real America is in New York or on the Pacific Coast; personally, I like the Middle West much better, places like North and South Dakota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul. There, I think, are the true Americans”― Charlie Chaplin
“There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.”
― Charlie Chaplin
― Charlie Chaplin
“I do not need drugs to be a genius, do not take a genius to be human, but I need your smile to be happy.”― Charles Chaplin
“During my incarceration Mother visited me. She had in some way managed to leave the workhouse and was making an effort to establish a home for us. Her presence was like a bouquet of flowers; she looked so fresh and lovely that I felt ashamed of my unkempt appearance and my shaved iodined head.
‘You must excuse his dirty face,’ said the nurse.
Mother laughed, and how well I remember her endearing words as she hugged and kissed me: ‘With all thy dirt I love thee still.”― Charles Chaplin
‘You must excuse his dirty face,’ said the nurse.
Mother laughed, and how well I remember her endearing words as she hugged and kissed me: ‘With all thy dirt I love thee still.”― Charles Chaplin
“The way of life can be free and beautiful!!!
…don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you – who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, 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. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers – don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty.”― Charlie Chaplin
…don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you – who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, 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. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers – don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil 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!”― Charlie Chaplin
“All I need is the opportunity,’ I said confidently. He smiled. ‘Seventeen’s very young, and you look even younger.’ I shrugged off-handedly. ‘That’s a question of make-up.’ Karno laughed. That shrug, he told Sydney later, got me the job.”― Charles Chaplin
“At a friend’s house in Greenwich Village I remember talking of the frustration of trying to find the precise word for one’s thoughts, saying that the ordinary dictionary was inadequate. ‘Surely a system could be devised,’ I said, ‘of lexicographically charting ideas, from abstract words to concrete ones, and by deductive and inductive processes arriving at the right word for one’s thought.’ ‘There is such a book,’ said a Negro truck-driver: ‘Roget’s Thesaurus’ A waiter working at the Alexandria Hotel used to quote his Karl Marx and William Blake with every course he served me. A comedy acrobat with a Brooklyn ‘dis’, ‘dem’ and ‘dose’ accent recommended Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, saying that Shakespeare was influenced by him and so was Sam Johnson. ‘But you can skip the Latin.’ With the rest of them I was intellectually a fellow-traveller.”― Charlie Chaplin
“You have the love of humanity in your hearts. In the seventeenth chapter of saint Luke it is written the kingdom of god is in men. Not in one man nor a group of men but in all men. In you”― Charlie Chaplin
“When I realize how distorted even recent events have become, history as such only arouses my scepticism. Whereas a poetic interpretation achieves a general effect of the period. After all, there are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.”― Charlie Chaplin
“I don’t believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.” – Charlie Chaplin
“They will always criticize you, speak badly of you, it’ll be hard to meet someone who will like you as you are, so live, do what your heart tells you to do … Life is like a play that does not allow testing. So sing, cry, dance, laugh and live intensely every day of your life, before the curtain closes and the piece ends with no applause.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Who feeds a hungry animal feeds his own soul.”― Charles Chaplin
“I see so little of you these days; your presence is as rare as that of one’s discarded mistress.”
― Charles Chaplin
― Charles Chaplin
“I tell them to bring him in. He comes in smiling in triumph. And he can’t speak English. After his hours of waiting we cannot talk. I feel rather sorry for him and we do our best. Finally, with the aid of about everyone in the hotel he manages to ask: “Do you like France?” “Yes,” I answer. He is satisfied.”― Charlie Chaplin
“In truth, real fame is never usurped; it only has a sense, a value and duration when it is turned to a good cause. And your victory is in the fact that you have human generosity and spontaneity that are not inhibited by rules or cleverness but stem from your own sufferings, your joys, hopes and disappointments; all that is understood by those who suffer beyond their strength and ask for pity, and who constantly hope to be comforted, to be made to forget for a moment, by that laughter which does not pretend to cure, but only to console.”― Charles Chaplin
“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….
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.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Worry more about your conscience than your reputation. Because your conscience is what you are, your reputation is what others think of you. And what others think of you is their problem.”― Charles Chaplin
“I have many problems in my life. But my lips don’t know that”. They just keep smiling.”
― Charlie Chaplin
― Charlie Chaplin
“I have no further use for America. I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ was President.”
― Charles Chaplin
― Charles Chaplin
“I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.”― Charlie Chaplin
“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”― Charlie Chaplin
20 Short Charlie Chaplin Quotes
“The mirror is my best friend because when I cry it never laughs.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Life is a beautiful magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish.”― Charles Chaplin
“I always like walking in the rain, so no one can see me crying.”― Charlie Chaplin
“A man’s true character comes out when he’s drunk.”― Charlie Chaplin
“You’ll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile.”― Charlie Chaplin
“To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Imagination means nothing without doing.”― Charlie Chaplin
“That’s the trouble with the world. We all despise ourselves.”― Charlie Chaplin
“In the end, everything is a gag.”― Charlie Chaplin
“In the light of our egos, we are all dethroned monarchs”― Charlie Chaplin
“Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.”― Charlie Chaplin
“A day without laughing is a day wasted”― Charlie Chaplin
“Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is ‘elephant’.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone”― Charles Chaplin
“What do you want meaning for? Life is desire, not meaning.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself”― Charlie Chaplin
“We think too much and feel too little.”― Charlie Chaplin
“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles.”― Charlie Chaplin
“You’ll never find a rainbow if you’re looking down”― Charlie Chaplin