Walt Disney (1901 – 1966)
American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, and animator.
All our dreams can come true — if we have the courage to pursue them.
Courage is the main quality of leadership, in my opinion, no matter where it is exercised. Usually it implies some risk — especially in new undertakings. Courage to initiate something and to keep it going, pioneering and adventurous spirit to blaze new ways, often, in our land of opportunity.
Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass appreciation.
We like to have a point of view in our stories, not an obvious moral, but a worthwhile theme. ... All we are trying to do is give the public good entertainment. That is all they want.
Over at our place, we're sure of just one thing: everybody in the world was once a child. So in planning a new picture, we don't think of grown-ups, and we don't think of children, but just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us that maybe the world has made us forget and that maybe our pictures can help recall.
When I started on Disneyland, my wife used to say, "But why do you want to build an amusement park? They're so dirty." I told her that was just the point — mine wouldn't be.
When we do fantasy, we must not lose sight of reality.
Leadership means that a group, large or small, is willing to entrust authority to a person who has shown judgement, wisdom, personal appeal, and proven competence.
Disneyland is a work of love. We didn't go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.
Disneyland is like a piece of clay: If there is something I don't like, I'm not stuck with it. I can reshape and revamp.
I don't believe there's a challenge anywhere in the world that's more important to people everywhere than finding solutions to the problems of our cities. But where do we begin — how do we start answering this great challenge? Well, we're convinced we must start answering the public need. And the need is not just for curing the old ills of old cities. We think the need is for starting from scratch on virgin land and building a special kind of new community that will always be in a state of becoming. It will never cease to be a living blueprint of the future, where people actually live a life they can't find anywhere else in the world.
He probably did more to heal, or at least soothe troubled human spirits than all the psychiatrists in the world.
I suppose my formula might be: dream, diversify and never miss an angle.
Childishness? I think it's the equivalent of never losing your sense of humor. I mean, there's a certain something that you retain. It's the equivalent of not getting so stuffy that you can't laugh at others.
For every laugh, there should be a tear.
I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing — that it was all started by a mouse.
That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don't remember what it's like to be twelve years old. They patronize; they treat children as inferiors. I won't do that. I'll temper a story, yes. But I won't play down, and I won't patronize.
Despite the absence of a unifying "story" in Fantasia, there are along the way images and sequences with implications and messages — inspirational and disturbing, subtle and strong, scientific and pagan and Christian — all worth noting.
To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America; with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.
He was a very religious man, but he didn't believe you had to go to church to be religious. ... He respected every religion. There wasn't any that he ever criticized. He wouldn't even tell religious jokes.