Alec Guinness Quotes & Sayings

#1. Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage, and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.

Alec Guinness

#2. I never knew how good it is to be unknown until now. The last time I was unknown I was too busy trying to become known to realize the advantages of obscurity.

Alec Guinness

#3. There seems to be no end to the senseless wickedness done on this little planet in a minor solar system, and we puny mortals appear to be decreasing in importance so far as the universe is concerned.

Alec Guinness

#4. Failure has a thousand explanations. Success doesn't need one.

Alec Guinness

#5. Best performance of the year: Aston Villa v. Milan, September 1994

Alec Guinness

#6. Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool that follows it?

Alec Guinness

#7. I shrivel up every time someone mentions Star Wars to me.

Alec Guinness

#8. I don't know what else I could do but pretend to be an actor.

Alec Guinness

#9. The applause of all but very good men is no more than the precise measure of their possible hostility.

Alec Guinness

#10. All creative people hate mathematics. It's the most uncreative subject you can study.

Alec Guinness

#11. My contribution to film has always been negligible.

Alec Guinness

#12. The point of a knighthood for British actors is to enable them to play butlers.

Alec Guinness

#13. A superb tenor voice, like a silver trumpet muffled in silk.

Alec Guinness

#14. An actor is totally vulnerable. His total personality is exposed to critical judgment - his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance. In short, his ego.

Alec Guinness