Charlton Heston quotes

Political correctness is tyranny with manners.
-- Charlton Heston

#Atheist #Political #Manners

Clergymen tend to be unreliable and pompous figures. Seldom Jewish rabbis, less often Catholic priests, but Protestant ministers tend to be... not really very admirable. Not necessarily evil, but silly. And wrong, of course.
-- Charlton Heston

#Silly #Evil #Catholic

I believe that in your heart you already know something is profoundly wrong. When bartenders are responsible for drunk drivers' acts, and gunmakers are responsible for criminals' acts, and nobody is responsible for O. J. Simpson's acts, something is wrong.
-- Charlton Heston

#Believe #Heart #Drunk

Society mends its wounds. And that's invariably true in all the tragedies, in the comedies as well. And certainly in the histories.
-- Charlton Heston

#Tragedy #Comedy #Wells

Moses is the keystone to every man's ethical code. He was the first man of record in history to conceive of the law as separate from the will of a ruler, to choose whether a man should live by grace of law, or law by grace of man. In a literal sense Moses lives at every council table today.
-- Charlton Heston

#Men #Law #Grace

There's no such thing as a good gun. There's no such thing as a bad gun. A gun in the hands of a bad man is a very dangerous thing. A gun in the hands of a good person is no danger to anyone except the bad guys.
-- Charlton Heston

#Gun #Men #Hands

You could say that the paparazzi and the tabloids are sort of the `assault weapons' of the First Amendment. They're ugly, a lot of people don't like them, but they're protected by the First Amendment - just as `assault weapons' are protected by the Second Amendment.
-- Charlton Heston

#Gun #People #Second Amendment

I simply cannot stand by and watch a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States come under attack from those who either can't understand it, don't like the sound of it, or find themselves too philosophically squeamish to see why it remains the first among equals: Because it is the right we turn to when all else fails. That's why the Second Amendment is America's first freedom.
-- Charlton Heston

#Gun #America #Second Amendment

I always work on the theory that the audience will believe you best if you believe yourself.
-- Charlton Heston

#Believe #Theory #Audience

One way or another, if you’re persistent, fortune always smiles on you.
-- Charlton Heston

#Way #Always Smile #Fortune

You could think of extraordinary examples to the contrary: The Grapes of Wrath... and even into the 70s.
-- Charlton Heston

#Thinking #Wrath #Example

And their pals vote for their stuff when they're not on the panel, and it just keeps going that way. And they tend to be very fringe artists, so anything before the 20th century is not worth considering. This is out of date.
-- Charlton Heston

#Artist #Pals #Stuff

Undeniably the American art form, too. And yet more and more, we see films made that diminish the American experience and example. And sometimes trash it completely.
-- Charlton Heston

#Art #Example #Sometimes

Above all, a director has to be a good captain.
-- Charlton Heston

#Directors #Captains

Well, we have certainly produced great art before we did this. In my view, there are any number of areas of government which tax money should not be spent.
-- Charlton Heston

#Art #Numbers #Government

The trouble with movies as a business is that it's an art, and the trouble with movies as art is that it's a business.
-- Charlton Heston

#Art #Business #Trouble

I'm neither giving up nor giving in.
-- Charlton Heston

#Giving Up #Giving #Tenacity

Life is full of surprises, isn't it?
-- Charlton Heston

#Life Is #Surprise #Life Is Full Of Surprises

You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
-- Charlton Heston

#Gun #Cold #Fingers

I used to think if it wasn't possible to be a family man and a totally dedicated artist, I'd rather be the former. I'm an idealist and a romantic.
-- Charlton Heston

#Artist #Men #Thinking

Doing a picture with Willie Wyler is like getting the works at a Turkish bath. You damn near drown, but you come out smelling like a rose.
-- Charlton Heston

#Rose #Hollywood #Baths

Shakespeare is the outstanding example of how that can be done. In all of Shakespeare's plays, no matter what tragic events occur, no matter what rises and falls, we return to stability in the end.
-- Charlton Heston

#Fall #Play #Events

Celebrity is a corrosive condition for the soul.
-- Charlton Heston

#Soul #Fame

The big studio era is from the coming of sound until 1950, until I came in I came in at a crux in film, which was the end of the studio era and the rise of filmmaking.
-- Charlton Heston

#Sound #Eras #Film

In terms of pure physical effort, today was probably as hard as I've worked in any part. I spent the morning rowing, including the change of speeds Arrius [the Roman commander] test Judah with. A real bone-breaker.
-- Charlton Heston

#Morning #Real #Effort

Sometimes, to be silent is to be most eloquent.
-- Charlton Heston

#Wisdom #Sometimes #Silent

So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobedience of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men
-- Charlton Heston

#Men #Hands #Tyrants

As an actor, I'm thankful I have lived not one life, but many.
-- Charlton Heston

#Actors #Profession

What you hold in your hand is proof of man's power - against which our strength means nothing. It has the force of 100 spears. I warn you, man's ingenuity goes hand-in-hand with their cruelty. No creature is as devious or violent.
-- Charlton Heston

#Mean #Men #Hands

[President Clinton] boasts about 186,000 people denied firearms under the Brady Law rules. The Brady Law has been in force for three years. In that time, they have prosecuted seven people and put three of them in prison. You know, the President has entertained more felons than that at fundraising coffees in the White House, for Pete's sake.
-- Charlton Heston

#Coffee #Gun #Years

If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.
-- Charlton Heston

#Thinking #Race #Doe

Another plague upon the land, as devastating as the locusts God loosed on the Egyptians, is 'Political Correctness.'
-- Charlton Heston

#Land #Political #Political Correctness

The Internet is for lonely people. People should live.
-- Charlton Heston

#Lonely #People #Internet

Maybe it's good if God gives you something to think about every so often.
-- Charlton Heston

#Fate #Thinking #Giving

To the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to tell you something: You can have my gun. You can pry it from my cold dead hands!
-- Charlton Heston

#Gun #Hands #Want

To be an actor you need four things: energy, concentration, a lot of luck and, of course, good roles.
-- Charlton Heston

#Luck #Energy #Needs

In recent years, anyone in the government, certainly anyone in the FBI or the CIA, or recently, in again, Clint's film, In the Line of Fire, the main bad guy is the chief advisor to the president.
-- Charlton Heston

#Fire #Government #Years

As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that. I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated.
-- Charlton Heston

#War #Gun #Land

The First Amendment is crucial. Of course it is. So are all the others. And the Second Amendment is the one that guarantees that people can bear arms to protect themselves.
-- Charlton Heston

#Gun #People #Second Amendment

It's the camel's nose in the tent. Look at Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Idi Amin--every one of these monsters, on seizing power, their first act was to confiscate all firearms in private hands...
-- Charlton Heston

#Hands #Monsters #Camels

A policemans job is only easy in a police state.
-- Charlton Heston

#Jobs #Police #Easy

Dirty Harry, for example. Clint Eastwood was not a rogue cop. He was a maverick cop, but he was a good guy.
-- Charlton Heston

#Dirty #Naughty #Guy

I've played three presidents, three saints and two geniuses - and that's probably enough for any man
-- Charlton Heston

#Men #Two #President

A clear enunciation of these rights needs to be enshrined in the constitution to guarantee that this basic right of law-abiding gun owners and sportsmen shall not be infringed upon by anti-gun public officials.
-- Charlton Heston

#Gun #Law #Rights

A war put off is not a war avoided.
-- Charlton Heston

#Military #War

You can spend a lifetime, and, if you're honest with yourself, never once was your work perfect.
-- Charlton Heston

#Inspirational #Perfect #Honest

An epic is the easiest kind of picture to make badly.
-- Charlton Heston

#Kindness #Epic #Kind