Walt Disney Quotes: 102 Quotes Inspiring Creativity and Bettering the World through Entertainment and Community

“It's a mistake not to give people a chance to learn to depend on themselves while they are young.”

Walt Disney

The Quotable Walt Disney (2001)

People , Learning , Chance , Dependency

“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.”

Walt Disney

As quoted in OpenGL Shading Language (2006) by Randi J. Rost, p. 411

Communication , Animals

“What are you doing with a car here in 1860?”

Walt Disney

To a company publicist at Frontierland in Disneyland, As quoted in Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service (Disney Editions, 2001) p. 62

Cars

“It's kind of fun to do the impossible.”

Walt Disney

As quoted in Animated Architecture (1982) by Derek Walker, p. 10
Variant: It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

“I always felt that Uncle Remus should be played by a living person, as should also the young boy to whom Harris' old Negro philosopher relates his vivid stories of the Briar Patch. Several tests in previous pictures, especially in The Three Caballeros, were encouraging in the way living action and animation could be dovetailed. Finally, months ago, we 'took our foot in hand,' in the words of Uncle Remus, and jumped into our most venturesome but also more pleasurable undertaking.”

Walt Disney

As quoted in "The Movie: Background". Song of the South.net. Retrieved 2007-01-18.

Pleasure , Way , Boy , Animals

“If you can dream it, you can do it.”

Walt Disney

Tom Fitzgerald, a Disney Imagineer, as quoted in Ask Dave by Dave Smith (27 February - 12 March 2013) https://d23.com/d23-presents-ask-dave-answers-to-questions-asked/:
:: Despite its frequent publication, that is not a Walt Disney quote. We checked with Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald for the definitive answer: "I am very familiar with that line because I wrote it! It was written specifically for the Horizons attraction at Epcot and used in numerous ways, from dialogue in the ride to graphics. I find it amusing that the Science of Imagineering DVD series attributes it to Walt Disney, but I guess I should be flattered."
::* Disney Trivia from the Vault (2012) by Dave Smith, p. 243
Misattributed
Variant: If you can dream it, you can do it.

Dreams

“Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever.”

Walt Disney

Misattributed

Wedding , Age , Dreams , Imagination

“The most exciting and by far the most important part of our Florida Project — in fact, the heart of everything we'll be doing in Disney World — will be our Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow! We call it EPCOT.”

Walt Disney

EPCOT promotional film (1966)

World , Communication , Heart , Parting

“I suppose my formula might be: dream, diversify and never miss an angle.”

Walt Disney

"Walt's Profit Formula: Dream, Diversity, and Never Miss an Angle" in Wall Street Journal (4 February 1958)

Dreams

“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.”

Walt Disney

The Quotable Walt Disney (2001)

“Actually, if you could see close in my eyes, the American flag is waving in both of them and up my spine is growing this red, white and blue stripe.”

Walt Disney

The Quotable Walt Disney (2001)

“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island and at the bottom of the Spanish Main… and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life.”

Walt Disney

As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter

Life , Books

“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.”

Walt Disney

On EPCOT, quoted in Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando (2001) by Richard E. Foglesong, p. 67, and The Animated Man : A Life of Walt Disney (2007) by Michael Barrier

Life , People , World , Communication

“I’ve never believed in doing sequels. I didn’t want to waste the time I have doing a sequel; I’d rather be using that time doing something new and different ”

Walt Disney

Time

“You’re dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.”

Walt Disney

Dead

“I take great pride in the artistic development of cartoons. Our characters are made to go through emotions which a few short years ago would have seemed impossible to secure with a cartoon character. Some of the action produced in the finished cartoon of today is more graceful than anything possible for a human to do.”

Walt Disney

“I don’t make pictures just to make money. I make money to make more pictures. ”

Walt Disney

Money

“We believed in our idea — a family park where parents and children could have fun — together. ”

Walt Disney

Children , Family , Idea , Parent

“I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained. ”

Walt Disney

People , Education , Hope , Learning

“No story in English literature has intrigued me more than Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.”

Walt Disney

It fascinated me the first time I read it as a schoolboy and as soon as I possibly could after I started making animated cartoons, I acquired the film rights to it. People in his period had no time to waste on triviality, yet Carroll with his nonsense and fantasy furnished a balance between seriousness and enjoyment which everybody needed then and still needs today.
American Weekly (1946)

Literature

“I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter. With the laugh comes the tears and in developing motion pictures or television shows, you must combine all the facts of life — drama, pathos and humor.”

Walt Disney

Source: Year unknown, published in 2004, How to Be Like Walt : Capturing the Magic Every Day of Your Life (2004), Ch. 1 : It All Started with a Boy, p. 16

Tear , Life

“Faith I have, in myself, in humanity, in the worthwhileness of the pursuits in entertainment for the masses. But wide awake, not blind faith, moves me. My operations are based on experience, thoughtful observation and warm fellowship with my neighbors at home and around the world.”

Walt Disney

As quoted in The Gospel According to Disney : Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust (2004) by Mark I. Pinsky, p. 20
Year unknown, published in 2004

Home , World , Faith

“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.”

Walt Disney

As quoted in The Gospel According to Disney : Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust (2004) by Mark I. Pinsky, p. 2
Year unknown, published in 2004

“We have created characters and animated them in the dimension of depth, revealing through them to our perturbed world that the things we have in common far outnumber and outweigh those that divide us.
.. They say I'm a conservative, but I consider myself a true liberal.”

Walt Disney

As quoted August 2004 in How to Be Like Walt: Capturing the Disney Magic Every Day of Your Life by Pat Williams, Jim Denney, pg. 371
Year unknown, published in 2004

Animals , World

“To the youngsters of today, I say believe in the future, the world is getting better; there still is plenty of opportunity. Why, would you believe it, when I was a kid I thought it was already too late for me to make good at anything.”

Walt Disney

Year unknown, published in 2001, The Quotable Walt Disney (2001)

Future , World

“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.”

Walt Disney

From Walt Disney World: Then, Now, & Forever: Too many people grow up. 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 12 years old. They patronize, they treat children as inferiors. Well, I won't do that. I won't do that. I'll temper a story, yes. But I won't play down, and I won't patronize.
Year unknown, published in 2001, The Quotable Walt Disney (2001)

Children , People , World , Forgetting

“Childishness? I think it's the equivalent of never losing your sense of humor. I mean, yes there's a certain something that you retain. It's the equivalent of not getting so stuffy that you can't laugh at others.”

Walt Disney

Year unknown, published in 2001, The Quotable Walt Disney (2001)

Thinking , Sense

“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 an adventurous spirit to blaze new ways, often, in our land of opportunity.”

Walt Disney

As quoted in The Magic of Teamwork (1997) by Pat Williams
Year unknown, published in 1990s

Courage , Exercises , Way

“I have long felt that the way to keep children out of trouble is to keep them interested in things. Lecturing to children is no answer to delinquency. Preaching won't keep youngsters out of trouble, but keeping their minds occupied will.”

Walt Disney

1963, Deeds Rather Than Words (1963)