There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.

When a man tells you he got rich by hard work, ask him whose.

I never climbed any ladder: I have achieved eminence by sheer gravitation.

Set me anything to do as a task, and it is inconceivable the desire I have do something else.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.

Life is no `brief candle' to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I've got to hold up for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

England and America are two countries divided by a common language.

[Dancing is] a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

The trouble, Mr Goldwyn, is that you are only interested in art and I am only interested in money.