Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov, CBE FRSAwas an English actor, writer, and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humorist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster, and television presenter. A noted wit and raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits for much of his career. He was also a respected intellectual and diplomat, who in addition to his various academic posts, served as a Goodwill Ambassador...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth16 April 1921
People are annoyed with the Chinese for not respecting more human rights. But with a population that size it's very difficult to have the same attitude to human rights.
Life was cheap in the Middle Ages. It has become cheaper since. It is only in specific battles for specific lives that our culture is put to the test, and with it our humanity.
I am an international citizen conceived in Russia, born in England, working in Hollywood, living in Switzerland, and touring the World.
British education is probably the best in the world, if you can survive it. If you can't there is nothing left for you but the diplomatic corps.
The stupidity of a stupid man is exercised in a restricted field; the stupidity of an intelligent man has a much wider diffusion, and a far greater effect, aided as it is by the element of surprise.
When I was small, I would refuse to drink when I ate fish because I thought the fish would reconstitute itself in my stomach
I have Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, French and Ethiopian blood in my veins.
The young need old men. They need men who are not ashamed of age, not pathetic imitations of themselves. ... Parents are the bones on which children sharpen their teeth.
Toronto is a kind of New York operated by the Swiss.
All the hideously calculated hypocrisy of men when they commit a murder in the name of justice. Then it's the time of death on a grander scale, the hour of the great offenses - fix your bayonets boys - gentlemen, synchronize your watches - in ten seconds time the barrage starts, ... a thousand men are destined to die in order to capture a farmhouse no one has lived in for years.
Basically I'm a very serious person, but I think the form it takes with me is comedy. I see the amusing side of all potentially pompous situations.
Sex is a conversation carried out by another means.
What is education but a process by which a person begins to learn how to learn?
It is youth that has discovered love as a weapon.