49 Quotes by Sarah Bernhardt

Although all new ideas are born in France, they are not readily adopted there. It seems that they must first commence to prosper in a foreign country.

To be a good actor . . . it is necessary to have a firmly tempered soul, to be surprised at nothing, to resume each minute the laborious task that has barely just been finished.

The monster of advertisement... is a sort of octopus with innumerable tentacles. It throws out to right and left, in front and behind, its clammy arms, and gathers in, through its thousand little suckers, all the gossip and slander and praise afloat, to spit out again at the public.

Me pray? Never! I'm an atheist.

What would life be without art? Science prolongs life. To consist of what-eating, drinking, and sleeping? What is the good of living longer if it is only a matter of satisfying the requirements that sustain life? All this is nothing without the charm of art.

Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.

... actors of the first water are not more plentiful than playwrights of genius.

New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion, and perhaps somebody's castle-roof perforated.

A defective voice will always preclude an artist from achieving the complete development of his art, however intelligent he may be.... The voice is an instrument which the artist must learn to use with suppleness and sureness, as if it were a limb.