Sidney Poitier Quotes & Sayings

I defend myself by improving myself. — Sidney Poitier

I wouldn't change a single thing, because one change alters every moment that follows it. — Sidney Poitier

My father was a certain kind of man - I saw how he treated my mother and his family and how he treated strangers. And I vowed I would never make a film that would not reflect properly on my father's name. — Sidney Poitier

Jackie Robinson is a true legend. — Sidney Poitier

I think the way I want to think. I live the way I want to live. — Sidney Poitier

I'd seen my father. He was a poor man, and I watched him do astonishing things. — Sidney Poitier

We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists ... in the loved one, perfection. — Sidney Poitier

I come from a great family. I've seen family life and I know how wonderful, how nurturing, and how wonderful it can be. — Sidney Poitier

The journey has been incredible from its beginning. — Sidney Poitier

Acting isn't a game of "pretend." It's an exercise in being real. — Sidney Poitier

I couldn't adjust to the racism in Florida. It was so blatant ... I had never been so described as Florida described me. — Sidney Poitier

I was born two months early, and everyone had given up on me. But my mother insisted on my life. — Sidney Poitier

I was not the kind of a principal player that was so in demand that eight or 10 or 12 scripts came per month. — Sidney Poitier

I wanted to look at them because I feel, internally, that I am an ordinary person who has had an extraordinary life. — Sidney Poitier

My mother was the most amazing person. She taught me to be kind to other women. She believed in family. She was with my father from the first day they met. All that I am, she taught me. — Sidney Poitier

I want my great-granddaughter to have a fairly good understanding of the world in which I lived for 81 years and also the world before I came into it - all the way back a hundred thousand years, to the beginning of our species. — Sidney Poitier

History passes the final judgment. — Sidney Poitier

I've learned that I must find positive outlets for anger or it will destroy me. There is a certain anger: it reaches such intensity that to express it fully would require homicidal rage
self destructive, destroy the world rage
and its flame burns because the world is so unjust. I have to try to find a way to channel that anger to the positive, and the highest positive is forgiveness. — Sidney Poitier

Of all my father's teachings, the most enduring was the one about the true measure of a man. That true measure was how well he provided for his children, and it stuck with me as if it were etched in my brain. — Sidney Poitier

I was the only Black person on the set. It was unusual for me to be in a circumstance in which every move I made was tantamount to representation of 18 million people. — Sidney Poitier

As I entered this world, I would leave behind the nurturing of my family and my home, but in another sense I would take their protection with me. The lessons I had learned, the feelings of groundedness and belonging that have been woven into my character there, would be my companions on the journey. — Sidney Poitier

I had chosen to use my work as a reflection of my values. — Sidney Poitier

Okay listen, you think I'm so inconsequential? Then try this on for size. All those who see unworthiness when they look at me and are given thereby to denying me value - to you I say, I'm not talking about being AS GOOD as you. I hereby declare myself BETTER than you. — Sidney Poitier

Accept that environment compromises values far more than values do their number on environment. — Sidney Poitier

Stay from underfoot and don't get into any trouble. You hear me?" "Yes, ma'am, I hear you." Due to past experience, she may not have completely believed me. When — Sidney Poitier

I have always been a learner because I knew nothing. — Sidney Poitier

I had two roles for which I compromised. — Sidney Poitier

I wanted to explore the values that are at work, underpinning my life. — Sidney Poitier

A good deed here, a good deed there, a good thought here, a good comment there, all added up to my career in one way or another. — Sidney Poitier

So it's been kind of a long road, but it was a good journey altogether. — Sidney Poitier

When you walk with someone, something unspoken happens. Either you match their pace or they match yours. — Sidney Poitier

The older we get the less afraid we are. — Sidney Poitier

As I've mentioned, a large part of my father's legacy is the lesson he taught his sons. He brought us together and said, 'The measure of a man is how well he provides for his children. — Sidney Poitier

I lived in a country where I couldn't live where I wanted to live. I lived in a country where I couldn't go where I wanted to eat. I lived in a country where I couldn't get a job, except for those put aside for people of my colour or caste. — Sidney Poitier

I was a gift to my mother. She was a remarkable person. God or nature, or whatever those forces are, smiled on her, then passed me the best of her. — Sidney Poitier

True 'joy' is the difference between just amusing ourselves to death and creating 'meaningful' pleasure. — Sidney Poitier

I don't very often read novels. — Sidney Poitier

If you apologize because you are afraid, then you are a child not a man. — Sidney Poitier

My father was a tomato farmer. There is the phrase that says he or she worked their fingers to the bone, well, that's my dad. And he was a very good man. — Sidney Poitier

I don't mean to be like some old guy from the olden days who says, "I walked thirty miles to school every morning, so you kids should too." That's a statement born of envy and resentment. What I'm saying is something quite different. What I'm saying is that by having very little, I had it good. Children need a sense of pulling their own weight, of contributing to the family in some way, and some sense of the family's interdependence. They take pride in knowing that they're contributing. They learn responsibility and discipline through meaningful work. The values developed within a family that operates on those principles then extend to the society at large. By not being quite so indulged and "protected" from reality by overflowing abundance, children see the bonds that connect them to others. — Sidney Poitier

The impact of the black audience is expressing itself. They look to films to be more expressive of their needs, their lives. Hollywood has gotten that message - finally. — Sidney Poitier

I cannot be understood in three minutes. — Sidney Poitier

I was fortunate enough to have been raised to a certain point before I got into the race thing. I had other views of what a human is, so I was never able to see racism as the big question. Racism was horrendous, but there were other aspects to life. — Sidney Poitier

I set my star so high that I would constantly be in motion toward it. — Sidney Poitier

We suffer pain, we hang tight to hope, we nurture expectations, we are plagued occasionally by fears, we are haunted by defeats and unrealized hopes ... The hoplessness of which I speak is not limited. — Sidney Poitier

But perhaps more important, as someone wishing to make a comment or two about contemporary life and values, I don't have to dig through libraries or travel to exotic lands to arrive at a view of our modern situation refracted through the lens of the preindustrial world, or the uncommercialized, unfranchised, perhaps unsanitized-and therefore supposedly more "authentic"-perspective ofthe Third World. Very simply, this is because that "other" world, as alien as if separated by centuries in time, is the one from which I came — Sidney Poitier

I had learned something of Miami from people who had visited there, so I knew what to expect. — Sidney Poitier

When I set out to become an actor, I had set myself a standard. — Sidney Poitier

I would like to grow less afraid of dying. I am infinitely less afraid today than I was 15 or 25 years ago. I was most afraid of dying when I was 33, because I come from a Catholic family. — Sidney Poitier

Generally, I tend to despise human behavior rather than human creatures. — Sidney Poitier

I am not a hugely religious person, but I believe that there is a oneness with everything. And because there is this oneness, it is possible that my mother is the principal reason for my life. — Sidney Poitier

My father was a poor man, very poor in a British colonial possession where class and race were very important. — Sidney Poitier

I had to satisfy the action fans, the romantic fans, the intellectual fans. It was a terrific burden. — Sidney Poitier

I am the me I choose to be. — Sidney Poitier

My father was the quintessential husband and dad. — Sidney Poitier

My father was very big on marriage. — Sidney Poitier

I knew what it was to be uncomfortable in a movie theater watching unfolding on the screen images of myself - not me, but black people - that were uncomfortable. — Sidney Poitier

I get offered work these days. — Sidney Poitier

But I always had the ability to say no. That's how I called my own shots. — Sidney Poitier

I do know that I'm responsible not for what happens, but for what I make of it. — Sidney Poitier

As a man, I've been representative of the values I hold dear. And the values I hold dear are carryovers from the lives of my parents. — Sidney Poitier

We're all imperfect, and life is simply a perpetual, unending struggle against those imperfections. — Sidney Poitier

If you are anxious about death, then you don't have a sense of the oneness of things-you feel that after death, you will be no more. — Sidney Poitier

There is not racial or ethnic domination of hopelessness. It's everywhere. — Sidney Poitier

I never had an occasion to question color, therefore, I only saw myself as what I was ... a human being. — Sidney Poitier

To be compared to Jackie Robinson is an enormous compliment, but I don't think it's necessarily deserved. — Sidney Poitier

If I'm remembered for having done a few good things, and if my presence here has sparked some good energies, that's plenty. — Sidney Poitier

Child psychologists have demonstrated that our minds are actually constructed by these thousands of tiny interactions during the first few years of life. We aren't just what we're taught. It's what we experience during those early years - a smile here, a jarring sound there - that creates the pathways and connections of the brain. We put our kids to fifteen years of quick-cut advertising, passive television watching, and sadistic video games, and we expect to see emerge a new generation of calm, compassionate, and engaged human beings? — Sidney Poitier

A person doesn't have to change who he is to become better. — Sidney Poitier

If you apply reason and logic to this career of mine, you're not going to get very far. You simply won't. — Sidney Poitier

You don't have to become something that you aren't to become better than you are. — Sidney Poitier

To simply wake up every morning a better person than when I went to bed. — Sidney Poitier

But my dad also was a remarkable man, a good person, a principled individual, a man of integrity. — Sidney Poitier

Every new fashion is a form of rebellion. — Sidney Poitier

You don't have to become something you're not to be better than you were. — Sidney Poitier

In America, it is difficult to be your own man. — Sidney Poitier

So I had to be careful. I recognized the responsibility that, whether I liked it or not, I had to accept whatever the obligation was. That was to behave in a manner, to carry myself in such a professional way, as if there ever is a reflection, it's a positive one. — Sidney Poitier

I find myself, at this time in my life, no less challenged, no less plagued, no less intrigued by what I still don't know. — Sidney Poitier

So I'm OK with myself, with history, my work, who I am and who I was. — Sidney Poitier

I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions. — Sidney Poitier

If the screen does not make room for me in the structure of their screenplay, I'll step out. I'll step back. I'd step back. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. — Sidney Poitier

I decided in my life that I would do nothing that did not reflect positively on my father's life. — Sidney Poitier

Since I couldn't actuate the things that I wanted to do, the only weapon I had was to say no. — Sidney Poitier

My autobiography was simply the story of my life. — Sidney Poitier

If the image one holds of one's self contains elements that don't square with reality, one is best advised to let go of them, however difficult that may be. — Sidney Poitier

My wife collects knickknacks. — Sidney Poitier

I'm going to quit writing. — Sidney Poitier

I didn't run into racism until we moved to Nassau when I was ten and a half, but it was vastly different from the kind of horrendous oppression that black people in Miami were under when I moved there at 15. I found Florida an antihuman place. — Sidney Poitier

I have a kind of respect
a worshipful attitude, even
for nature and the natural order and the cosmos and the seasons ... — Sidney Poitier

I'm not a library. — Sidney Poitier

Forgiveness works two ways, in most instances. People have to forgive themselves too. The powerful have to forgive themselves for their behavior. That should be a sacred process. — Sidney Poitier

I did not go into the film business to be symbolized as someone else's vision of me. — Sidney Poitier

So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness. — Sidney Poitier

I learned to hear silence. That's the kind of life I lived: simple. I learned to see things in people around me, in my mom, dad, brothers and sisters. — Sidney Poitier

Racism is very painful. That's life. It never ends. — Sidney Poitier

I'll always be chasing you ... Glory. — Sidney Poitier

Far as I can tell, I still have most of my hair, my gut is not hanging over my belt, and I still have all of my teeth. — Sidney Poitier

I sometimes like the pictures photographers take of me. — Sidney Poitier

I always wanted to be someone better the next day than I was the day before. — Sidney Poitier

Living
consciously involves being genuine; it involves listening and
responding to others honestly and openly; it involves being in the
moment. — Sidney Poitier