Sarah Bernhardt quotes

Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich. (Sarah Bernhardt)
He who is incapable of feeling strong passions, of being shaken by anger, of living in every sense of the word, will never be a good actor.
Sarah Bernhardt
Once the curtain is raised, the actor is ceases to belong to himself. He belongs to his character, to his author, to his public. He must do the impossible to identify himself with the first, not to betray the second, and not to disappoint the third.
Sarah Bernhardt
I adore Chicago. It is the pulse of America.
Sarah Bernhardt
Legend remains victorious in spite of history.
Sarah Bernhardt
Your words are my food, your breath my wine. You are everything to me.
Sarah Bernhardt
Me pray? Never! I'm an atheist.
Sarah Bernhardt
We ought to hate very rarely, as it is too fatiguing; remain indifferent to a great deal, forgive often and never forget.
Sarah Bernhardt
Acting is all internal, but must be externalized.
Sarah Bernhardt
What matters poverty? What matters anything to him who is enamoured of our art? Does he not carry in himself every joy and every beauty?
Sarah Bernhardt
Each action of the actor on the stage should be the visible concomitant of his thoughts. (Sarah Bernhardt)
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.
Sarah Bernhardt
The actor is too prone to exaggerate his powers; he wants to play Hamlet when his appearance is more suitable to King Lear.
Sarah Bernhardt
I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of other countries. I know them all now, and in any critical moment of my life, they all rise up in armed legions for or against me.
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.
Sarah Bernhardt
The theatre is the involuntary reflex of the ideas of the crowd.
Sarah Bernhardt
For the theatre one needs long arms... an artiste with short arms can never make a fine gesture.
Sarah Bernhardt
The truth, the absolute truth, is that the chief beauty for the theatre consists in fine bodily proportions.
Sarah Bernhardt
I have often been asked why I am so fond of playing male parts. As a matter of fact, it is not male parts, but male brains that I prefer.
Sarah Bernhardt
Permanent success cannot be achieved except by incessant intellectual labour, always inspired by the ideal.
Sarah Bernhardt
Oscar Wilde: 'Do you mind if I smoke?' Sarah Bernhardt: 'I don't care if you burn.' (Sarah Bernhardt)
Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrity when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.
Sarah Bernhardt
I do love cricket - it's so very English.
Sarah Bernhardt
It is in spending oneself that one becomes rich.
Sarah Bernhardt
Bernhardt's motto, a versatile french phrase meaning "anyway, nevertheless; really; how about that; finally"
Sarah Bernhardt