I know that the arts are important. I'm not denying that, but I can't associate myself with all the claptrap that goes on around it.

I am able to play monsters well. I understand monsters. I understand madmen.

I've got no need to prove to myself that I can do Shakespeare. I've done it.

I don't know why they gave me a knighthood - though it's very nice of them - but I only ever use the title in the U.S. The Americans insist on it and get offended if I don't.

I like to take it easy.

I can't stand directors who try to micro-manage everything. When it happens these days I just walk off set, saying if they don't like the way I'm doing it they can get someone else.

I know that some actors and directors like to have intensity on set. I don't, particularly. Certainly, if they want that, that's fine, but I can't work like that.

A conductor can't be too arrogant with an orchestra and try to impose himself too much.

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

[T]he infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

So far as I can remember there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.

Sin is geographical.

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice, but seldom preach.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.

There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.

I'm rebelling against being handed a career, like, 'You're the next this; you're the next that.' I'm not the next anything, I'm the first me. I can't be myself, I can't just be Idris Elba. But that's just the nature of the business.