Top 80 Peter Ustinov Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Life is unfair but remember sometimes it is unfair in your favour.”

— Peter Ustinov

2. “Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.”

— Peter Ustinov

3. “I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.”

— Peter Ustinov

4. “If history teaches us one thing, than that history teaches us nothing.”

— Peter Ustinov

5. “Love is an act of endless forgiveness; a tender look which becomes a habit.”

— Peter Ustinov

6. “Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.”

— Peter Ustinov

7. “Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.”

— Peter Ustinov

8. “Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.”

— Peter Ustinov

9. “In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.”

— Peter Ustinov

10. “British education is probably the best in the world, if you can survive it. If you can’t there is nothing left for you but the diplomatic corps.”

— Peter Ustinov

11. “Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.”

— Peter Ustinov

12. “I can never forgive God for having invented the French.”

— Peter Ustinov

13. “To be gentle, tolerant, wise and reasonable requires a goodly portion of toughness.”

— Peter Ustinov

14. “American democracy is the inalienable right to sit on your front porch, in your pyjamas, drinking a can of beer and shouting out ‘Where else is this possible?’ Which doesn’t seem to me to be freedom, really.”

— Peter Ustinov

15. “Toronto is a kind of New York operated by the Swiss.”

— Peter Ustinov

16. “Unfortunately, a superabundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares.”

— Peter Ustinov

17. “It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.”

— Peter Ustinov

18. “If you’re going to be a prisoner of your own mind, the least you can do is make sure it’s well furnished.”

— Peter Ustinov

19. “Courage is often lack of insight, whereas cowardice in many cases is based on good information.”

— Peter Ustinov

20. “Did you know that the worldwide food shortage that threatens up to five hundred million children could be alleviated at the cost of only one day, only one day, of modern warfare.”

— Peter Ustinov

21. “Corruption is nature’s way of restoring our faith in democracy.”

— Peter Ustinov

22. “If Botticelli were alive today he’d be working for Vogue.”

— Peter Ustinov

23. “A twinge of conscience is a glimpse of God.”

— Peter Ustinov

24. “To live like a poor man is only fun when you are rich.”

— Peter Ustinov

25. “I am an optimist, unrepentant and militant. After all, in order not to be a fool an optimist must know how sad a place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day.”

— Peter Ustinov

26. “People who reach the top of the tree are only those who haven’t got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom.”

— Peter Ustinov

27. “We used to have lots of questions to which there were no answers. Now, with the computer, there are lots of answers to which we haven’t thought up questions.”

— Peter Ustinov

28. “This is a free country, madam. We have a right to share your privacy in a public place.”

— Peter Ustinov

29. “The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought.”

— Peter Ustinov

30. “At my age, I’m often asked if I’m frightened of death and my reply is always, I can’t remember being frightened of birth.”

— Peter Ustinov

31. “Love is an act of endless forgiveness. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.”

— Peter Ustinov

32. “Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.”

— Peter Ustinov

33. “What is education but a process by which a person begins to learn how to learn?”

— Peter Ustinov

34. “Monica Seles: I’d hate to be next door to her on her wedding night.”

— Peter Ustinov

35. “If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can’t be done.”

— Peter Ustinov

36. “Please keep off the grass.”

— Peter Ustinov

37. “Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of.”

— Peter Ustinov

38. “The only reason I made a commercial for American Express was to pay for my American Express bill.”

— Peter Ustinov

39. “The stupidity of a stupid man is mercifully intimate and reticient, while the stupidity of an intellectual is cried from the rooftops.”

— Peter Ustinov

40. “I am convinced that it is of primordial importance to learn more every year than the year before. After all, what is education but a process by which a person begins to learn how to learn.”

— Peter Ustinov

41. “I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me the most civilised music in the world.”

— Peter Ustinov

42. “I hate being moved. I hate that man who came in. So self-righteous, so cruel. He made fun of me, that’s why I cried. You never did that. You led me into temptation by your – politeness.”

— Peter Ustinov

43. “I am an international citizen conceived in Russia, born in England, working in Hollywood, living in Switzerland, and touring the World.”

— Peter Ustinov

44. “That weakness in human nature which goes by the name of strength.”

— Peter Ustinov

45. “The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us.”

— Peter Ustinov

46. “When I was small, I would refuse to drink when I ate fish because I thought the fish would reconstitute itself in my stomach.”

— Peter Ustinov

47. “The French and the British are such good enemies that they can’t resist being friends.”

— Peter Ustinov

48. “I have Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, French and Ethiopian blood in my veins.”

— Peter Ustinov

49. “Life was cheap in the Middle Ages. It has become cheaper since. It is only in specific battles for specific lives that our culture is put to the test, and with it our humanity.”

— Peter Ustinov

50. “Marriage is like a three-speed gearbox – affection, friendship, love. It is not advisable to crash your gears and go right through to love straightaway. You need to ease your way through. The basis of love is respect, and that needs to be learned from affection and friendship.”

— Peter Ustinov