Oliver Stone

Film & Theater USA 1946 100 quotes

Conspiracy chronicler of JFK, Stone's polemics sparked quotable political debates.

Most quoted

"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind."

— from Wall Street (film), 1987

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

— from Platoon (film), 1986

"The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."

— from Natural Born Killers (film), 1994

All quotes by Oliver Stone (100)

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

JFK (film) 1991

Money never sleeps.

Wall Street (film) 1987

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

JFK (film) 1991

Every man dies, not every man really lives.

Platoon (film) 1986

The truth will set you free.

JFK (film) 1991

You can't handle the truth!

JFK (film) 1991

The world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

Natural Born Killers (film) 1994

The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants in life is the will to try it and the faith to believe it's possible.

Wall Street (film) 1987

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

JFK (film) 1991

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

JFK (film) 1991

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

JFK (film) 1991

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

Wall Street (film) 1987

The pen is mightier than the sword.

JFK (film) 1991

All that glitters is not gold.

Wall Street (film) 1987

There are no facts, only interpretations.

JFK (film) 1991

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Platoon (film) 1986

The only constant in life is change.

Wall Street (film) 1987

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.

JFK (film) 1991

The unexamined life is not worth living.

JFK (film) 1991

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Natural Born Killers (film) 1994