All too often arrogance accompanies strength, and we must never assume that justice is on the side of the strong. The use of power must always be accompanied by moral choice.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

But there is a difference here: When Jewish children are murdered, Arabs celebrate the deed. The death of an Arab child is no cause for celebration in Israel.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

But, when I toil in the field of Jewish culture which I frequently do, I am indeed a Jewish artist.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to action. Such films do battle for our very soul.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

Despite a large body of work in films, TV, theatre and concerts, I am viewed by many as a Jewish artist. I do not resent the label, except for the fact that I disapprove of labels in general.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. By what conduit do we know what we know?
- Theodore Bikel Quote

Having come to live in this age is as though one were to have entered another country. Learn its language or risk being left out.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I always sang, I always acted, I always played.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I am a universalist, passionately devoted to the cause of equality within the human family.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us back a sense of wonder.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I am not a specialist but a general practitioner in the world of the arts.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I created the role of Captain Von Trapp.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I do prefer the stage. It's really the granddaddy of them all.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I know for certain of only one commandment, one obligation, that God imposes upon us, and that is to be compassionate toward other human beings.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I prefer to choose which traditions to keep and which to let go.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I tried for a while to be an agricultural worker and was hopelessly bored. To me it was meaningless. I would stand around in heaps of manure and sings about the beauty of the work I wasn't doing.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

I'm exceedingly proud of being an actor, but I never recommend it to anyone.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

If I have one vanity wish, it would be to direct. It's the only thing I haven't done yet that I would like to.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

Must we be put to shame by much smaller and poorer countries, by Ireland, France, Austria or Sweden, who have understood that a nation's support of its arts is a matter of both national pride and cultural survival?
- Theodore Bikel Quote

No doubt unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed into being by mere declarations.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

On the stage you're there, it's live. There's a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

One might have thought the world would stop ascribing moral equivalence between acts of terrorism and acts of punishing terrorism. It has not happened that way.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

The play is always fresh to me. It's not the audience's fault that I've said the words before.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

Throughout my life I have cared as deeply about the songs of all peoples as I have about the rights of all peoples.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

We live in a world of guns, bombs and terror. To conquer hate seems a nigh-impossible task.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

What moves me is neither ethnocentric pride nor sectarian arrogance. I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures. But it is mine.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

While we all could agree that the Zionist ideal is alive and well, there is serious doubt whether the Zionist movement can be said to be an ongoing proposition, fragmented as its components are in ideology and in practice.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

You always draw on your experiences with live audiences to know how to do comedy on films. You're working for a laugh that may or may not come six months later, but you're working in a vacuum at the time you are doing it.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

You can't expect the entire world to come to New York to see you. You have to travel to them.
- Theodore Bikel Quote

You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.
- Theodore Bikel Quote