John Wayne Quotes | Marion Robert Morrison born on May 26, 1907, known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke, was an American actor and filmmaker who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood’s Golden Age, especially in Western and war movies.
His career flourished from the silent era of the 1920s through the American New Wave, as he appeared in a total of 179 film and television productions. He was among the top box-office draws for three decades
Wayne’s other roles in Westerns include:
- a cattleman driving his herd on the Chisholm Trail in Red River (1948).
- a Civil War veteran whose niece is abducted by a tribe of Comanches in The Searchers (1956).
- a troubled rancher competing with a lawyer (James Stewart) for a woman’s hand in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).
- a cantankerous one-eyed marshal in True Grit (1969), for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor.
He is also remembered for his roles in The Quiet Man (1952) with Maureen O’Hara, Rio Bravo (1959) with Dean Martin, and The Longest Day (1962).
In his final screen performance, he starred as an aging gunfighter battling cancer in The Shootist (1976). He made his last public appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony on April 9, 1979 before succumbing to stomach cancer two months later.
He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor of the United States.
John Wayne Quotes About Life
“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.”
– John Wayne
“If everything isn’t black and white, I say, ‘Why the hell not?'”
– John Wayne
“I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.”
– John Wayne
“Get off your butt and join the Marines!”
– John Wayne
“I never have really become accustomed to the ‘John.’ Nobody ever really calls me John… I’ve always been Duke or Marion or . It’s a name that goes well together, and it’s like one word.”
– John Wayne
“My folks always let me go to the movies every Saturday. We were really motion-picture goers.”
– John Wayne
“In westerns, you meet a hardy bunch of characters. There is no jealousy on such pictures.”
– John Wayne
“Courage is being scared to death… and saddling up anyway.”
– John Wayne
“I do think we have a pretty wonderful country, and I thank God that He chose me to live here.”
– John Wayne
“I play in every picture regardless of the character, and I’ve been doing all right, haven’t I?”
– John Wayne
“I’ve always had deep faith that there is a Supreme Being, there has to be.”
– John Wayne
“There must be some higher power or how else does all this stuff work?”
– John Wayne
“I want to play a real man in all my films, and I define manhood simply: men should be tough, fair, and courageous, never petty, never looking for a fight, but never backing down from one either.”
– John Wayne
John Wayne Quotes About Love
“Nobody should come to the movies unless he believes in heroes.”
– John Wayne
“I suppose my best attribute if you want to call it that, is sincerity. I can sell sincerity because that’s the way I am.”
– John Wayne
“All I’m for is the liberty of the individual.”
– John Wayne
“I’m very conscious that people criticize Hollywood. Yet we’ve created a form, the Western, that can be understood in every country.”
– John Wayne
“I decided I was going to drag the bad guy to his feet and keep hitting him.”
– John Wayne
“Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.”
– John Wayne
“A goal, a love and a dream give you total control over your body and your life.”
– John Wayne
“Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.”
– John Wayne
“Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much”
– John Wayne
“A man ought to do what he thinks is right”
– John Wayne
“If you can’t be thankful for what you have, be thankful for what you have escaped.”
– John Wayne
“When you stop fighting, that’s death.”
– John Wayne
“All battles are fought by scared men who’d rather be some place else”
– John Wayne
“Courage is being scared to death… and saddling up anyway.”
– John Wayne
“A man deserves a second chance, but keep an eye on him.”
– John Wayne
“I have tried to live my life so that my family would love me and my friends respect me. The others can do whatever the hell they please.”
– John Wayne
“A man’s got to have a code, a creed to live by.”
– John Wayne
“I’m responsible only for what I say, not what you understand.”
– John Wayne
John Wayne Famous Quotes
“I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people and I require the same from them.”
– John Wayne
“What’s the secret of success? Right decisions. How do you make right decisions? Experience. How do you get experience? Wrong decisions.”
– John Wayne
“I would like to be remembered, well … the Mexicans have a phrase, ‘Feo fuerte y formal’. Which means he was ugly, strong and had dignity.”
– John Wayne
“A man deserves a second chance, but keep an eye on him.”
– John Wayne
“Young fella, if you’re looking for trouble I’ll accommodate ya”
– John Wayne
“True grit is making a decision and standing by it, doing what must be done.”
– John Wayne
“Well, a gun that’s unloaded and cocked ain’t good for nothing’.”
– John Wayne
“Baby sister, I was born game and I intend to go out that way.”
– John Wayne
“All the screen cowboys behaved like real gentlemen. They didn’t drink, they didn’t smoke. When they knocked the bad guy down, they always stood with their fists up, waiting for the heavy to get back on his feet. I decided I was going to drag the bad guy to his feet and keep hitting him.”
– John Wayne
“I wouldn’t make it a habit of calling me that son”
– John Wayne
“Big mouth don’t make a big man.”
– John Wayne
“I’m thirty years older than you are. I had my back broke once, and my hip twice. And on my worst day I could beat the hell out of you.”
– John Wayne
“I’m proud of ya… All of ya. Every man wants his children to be better’n he was. You are.”
– John Wayne
Best John Wayne Quotes
“I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”
– John Wayne
“You have a streak of kindness a mile wide.”
– John Wayne
“I’m a dying man, scared of the dark.”
– John Wayne
“Sometimes it isn’t being fast that counts, or even accurate; but willing. Most men will draw a breath or blink an eye before they shoot. I won’t.”
– John Wayne
“Out here, due process is a bullet!”
– John Wayne
“I may sound like a bible beater yelling up a revival at a river crossing camp meeting but that doesn’t change the truth none, there’s right and there’s wrong. You gotta do one or the other. You do the one and you’re living, you do the other and you may be walking around but you’re dead as a beaver hat.”
– John Wayne
“Now you understand. Anything goes wrong, anything at all… your fault, my fault, nobody’s fault… it doesn’t matter… I’m gonna blow your head off. It’s as simple as that.”
– John Wayne
“Don’t say it’s a fine morning or I’ll shoot ya”
– John Wayne
“I know those law books mean a lot to you, but not out here. Out here a man settles his own problems.”
– John Wayne
“Hey, stupid! Where do you think you’re going? Get back there with the herd, you mutton head!”
– John Wayne
“You can call me Father, you can call me Jacob, you can call me Jake. You can call me a dirty son-of-a-bitch, but if you EVER call me Daddy again, I’ll finish this fight.”
– John Wayne
Inspirational John Wayne Quotes
“I never have really become accustomed to the ‘John.’ Nobody ever really calls me John… I’ve always been Duke or Marion or . It’s a name that goes well together, and it’s like one word.”
– John Wayne
“I was ashamed to admit I was hipped to the idea of acting. That’s why I started in with the props.”
– John Wayne
“In my acting, I have to identify with something in the character. The big tough boy on the side of right.”
– John Wayne
“I’ve always followed my father’s advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be goddamn sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble.”
– John Wayne
“I would like to be remembered, well … the Mexicans have a phrase, “Feo fuerte y formal”. Which means he was ugly, strong and had dignity.”
– John Wayne
“I was sure I’d set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth – that I hadn’t set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if ‘The Big Trail’ had been a success and launched me as a star.”
– John Wayne
“If everything isn’t black and white, I say, ‘Why the hell not?’”
– John Wayne
“I’d like to know why the well-educated idiots keep apologizing for lazing and complaining people who think the world owes them a living.”
– John Wayne
Top John Wayne Quotes
“Everybody that I was in school with had an uncle or father in the law, and I started to realize that I was going to end up writing briefs for about ten years for these fellows who I thought I was smarter than. And I was kind of losing my feeling for that.”
– John Wayne
“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.”
– John Wayne
“Government has no wealth, and when a politician promises to give you something for nothing, he must first confiscate that wealth from you — either by direct taxes or by the cruelly indirect tax of inflation.”
– John Wayne
“A horse is a horse, it ain’t make a difference what color it is.”
– John Wayne
“When the road looks rough ahead, remember the ‘Man upstairs’ and the word Hope. Hang onto both and ‘tough it out’.”
– John Wayne
“I’ve had three wives, six children, and six grandchildren and I still don’t understand women.”
– John Wayne
“A lot of guys make mistakes, I guess, but every one we make, a whole stack of chips goes with it. We make a mistake, and some guy don’t walk away – forever more, he doesn’t walk away.”
– John Wayne
“I’ve always followed my father’s advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be goddamn sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble.”
– John Wayne
John Wayne Movie Quotes
“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.”
– John Wayne
“Those who like me already know me, and those who don’t like me wouldn’t want to read about me anyway.”
– John Wayne
“Don’t ever for a minute make the mistake of looking down your nose at westerns.”
– John Wayne
“You can’t whine and bellyache because somebody else got a good break and you didn’t.”
– John Wayne
“Words are what men live by… words they say and mean.”
– John Wayne
“You can take everything a man has as long as you leave him his dignity.”
– John Wayne
“Life is getting up one more time than you’ve been knocked down.”
– John Wayne
“A man’s got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter his job.”
– John Wayne
“I have tried to live my life so that my family would love me and my friends respect me. The others can do whatever the hell they please.”
– John Wayne
“Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday.”
– John Wayne
“All I’m for is the liberty of the individual.”
– John Wayne
“I suppose my best attribute, if you want to call it that, is sincerity. I can sell sincerity because that’s the way I am.”
– John Wayne
“I was sure I’d set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth – that I hadn’t set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if ‘The Big Trail’ had been a success and launched me as a star.”
– John Wayne
John Wayne Quotes Courage
“I’d read up on the history of our country and I’d become fascinated with the story of the Alamo. To me it represented the fight for freedom, not just in America, but in all countries.”
– John Wayne
“I’ve loved reading all my life.”
– John Wayne
“Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.”
– John Wayne
“All the screen cowboys behaved like real gentlemen. They didn’t drink, they didn’t smoke. When they knocked the bad guy down, they always stood with their fists up, waiting for the heavy to get back on his feet. I decided I was going to drag the bad guy to his feet and keep hitting him.”
– John Wayne
“When you come to see a picture of mine, I want you to know that I’m not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. I want you to know that you won’t be disappointed in me.”
– John Wayne
“Nobody should come to the movies unless he believes in heroes.”
– John Wayne
“When I was a sophomore at USC, I was a socialist, pretty much to the left. But not when I left the university. I quickly got wise. I’d read about what had happened to Russia in 1917 when the Communists took over.”
– John Wayne
“I’m not the sort to back away from a fight. I don’t believe in shrinking from anything. It’s not my speed; I’m a guy who meets adversities head on.”
– John Wayne
Some More John Wayne Quotes
“I was ashamed to admit I was hipped to the idea of acting. That’s why I started in with the props.”
– John Wayne
“Everybody that I was in school with had an uncle or father in the law, and I started to realize that I was going to end up writing briefs for about ten years for these fellows who I thought I was smarter than. And I was kind of losing my feeling for that.”
– John Wayne
“Real art is basic emotion. If a scene is handled with simplicity – and I don’t mean simple – it’ll be good, and the public will know it.”
– John Wayne
“Nothing is so discouraging to an actor than to have to work for long hours upon hours in brightly lighted interior sets.”
– John Wayne
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