100 Quotes by Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn, an emblem of Hollywood's Golden Age, brought a unique blend of strength and vulnerability to the silver screen. With her distinctive voice, unconventional beauty, and fierce independence, she challenged the traditional roles for women in film. Hepburn's performances were marked by her ability to portray complex, multidimensional characters with authenticity and depth. Her partnership with Spencer Tracy in a series of films became legendary, capturing their on-screen chemistry and off-screen connection. Throughout her career, Hepburn earned an unprecedented four Academy Awards for Best Actress, cementing her legacy as an acting powerhouse who not only illuminated the cinema but also paved the way for women to embrace their individuality and resilience in an ever-changing world.
Katharine Hepburn Quotes
If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun. (Meaning)
Life is hard. After all, it kills you. (Meaning)
Never complain. Never explain. (Meaning)
I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun. (Meaning)
Life gets harder the smarter you get, the more you know. (Meaning)
If you follow all of the rules, you'll miss all of the fun. (Meaning)
Enemies are so stimulating. (Meaning)
The time to make up your mind about people is never. (Meaning)
Listen to the song of life. (Meaning)
Cold sober, I find myself absolutely fascinating. (Meaning)
Without discipline, there's no life at all. (Meaning)
A sharp knife cuts the quickest and hurts the least. (Meaning)
Man who stands on toilet, gets high on pot! (Meaning)
The calla lilies are in bloom again. (Meaning)
If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.
Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give - which is everything.
Kindness is one of the greatest gifts you can bestow upon another. If someone is in need, lend them a helping hand. Do not wait for a thank you. True kindness lies within the act of giving without the expectation of something in return.
You can't just be talented: You have to be terribly smart and energetic and ruthless. You also have to become necessary to people, by working hard and well and bringing more than your bones and your skin to the project. Don't just show up. Transform the work, yourself, and everybody around you. Be needed. Be interesting. Be something no one else can be--and consistently.
As one goes through life, one learns that if you don't paddle your own canoe, you don't move.
The thing about life is that you must survive. Life is going to be difficult, and dreadful things will happen. What you do is move along, get on with it, and be tough. Not in the sense of being mean to others, but being tough with yourself and making a deadly effort not to be defeated.
Never complain. Never explain.
I have no romantic feelings about age. Either you are interesting at any age or you are not. There is nothing particularly interesting about being old - or being young, for that matter.
Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.
I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, and ain't afraid of being alone
You politicians remain professional because the voters remain amateur.
Let's just say that where a change was required, I adjusted. In every relationship that exists, people have to seek a way to survive. If you really care about the person, you do what's necessary, or that's the end. For the first time, I found that I really could change, and the qualities I most admired in myself I gave up. I stopped being loud and bossy... Oh, all right. I was still loud and bossy, but only behind his back.
We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change.
If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.
If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.
You can’t change the music of your soul.
The woman's position in the world today is so much harder than a man's that it makes me choke every time I hear a man complain about anything.
What the hell-you might be right, you might be wrong...but don't just avoid.
What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of chocolate.
I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.
Acting is a nice childish profession - pretending you're someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.
I have many regrets, and I'm sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret... if you have any sense, and if you don't regret them, maybe you're stupid.
I would have been a terrible mother because I'm basically a very selfish human being. Not that that has stopped most people going off and having children.
Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.
When I’ve been unsuccessful, I’ve been controlled. When I’ve been successful, I’ve been in control.
Few people know what they mean when they say, "I love you." ... Well, what does the word love mean? It means total interest. I think the reason very few people really fall in love with anyone is they're not willing to pay the price. The price is you have to adjust yourself to them.
What in the world would we do without our libraries?
You are the only person you can actually change
I've made forty-three pictures. Naturally I'm adorable in all of them.
Nobody owes anybody anything; it's up to each individual to set high standards for himself or herself, and to set about working hard and creating a solid future.
It's not what you start in life, it's what you finish.
Friendship, if somebody holds out his hand toward you, you've got to reach and take it... There are too many people alone, and if you're lucky enough for somebody to want you as a friend, it's an obligation.
Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only what you are expecting to give — which is everything. What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love and cannot help giving.
You give because you love and cannot help giving.
The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.
Life is hard. After all, it kills you.
The calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower—suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day, and now I place them here in memory of something that has died.
Don't give in! Make your own trail. Don't moan. Don't complain. Think positively.
I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun.
It is the plain women who know about love; the beautiful women are too busy being fascinating.
Life gets harder the smarter you get, the more you know.
I don't care WHAT the say about me, as long as it's not the truth
If you need a helping hand, you can find one at the end of your arm.
I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for people.
It's a business you go into because your an egocentric. It's a very embarrassing profession.
If you follow all of the rules, you'll miss all of the fun.
To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.
It's a rather rude gesture, but at least it's clear what you mean.
Silence the artist and you have silenced the most articulate voice the people have.
The time to make up your mind about people is never.
I wear my sort of clothes to save me the trouble of deciding which clothes to wear.
I believe how I act today will affect how I am tomorrow.
Don't moan, don't whine, don't blame. Just get on with it.
Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn't interest you, don't do it - I would have made a terrible mother.
If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior.
"Isn't it fun getting older?" is really a terrible fallacy. That's like saying I prefer driving an old car with a flat tire.
Once a crowd chased me for an autograph. "Beat it", I said, "go sit on a tack!" "We made you", they said. "Like hell you did", I told them.
The notion that work is a burden is a terrible mistake. Working and facing up to one's responsibilities: That's happiness.
I think everyone is an opportunist if they have an opportunity.
There are no laurels in life, just new challenges.
I'm a legend because I've survived over a long period of time and still seem to be master of my fate - I'm still paddling the goddamned boat myself.
I realised long ago that skirts are hopeless. Anytime I hear a man say he prefers a woman in a skirt, I say, 'Try one. Try a skirt.'
It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.
Love fattens on smooth words.
I loved Spencer Tracy. I would have done anything for him.
Plain women know more about men than beautiful women do.
If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting.
To live creatively free, do what you know how to do now, then 'act as if' you know how to do the rest.
Being an actor is such a humiliating experience because you are selling yourself to the public, your face, your personality, and that is humiliating. As you get older, it becomes more humiliating because you've got less to sell.
People think that I'm tough and strong and that I kicked my way through everything. But they are wrong. The truth is that when I was young I was adorable and a trembling wreck.
Marriage is a series of desperate arguments people feel passionately about.
Vitality! That's the pursuit of life, isn't it?
You learn in life that the only person you can really correct and change is yourself.
I think most of the people involved in any art always secretly wonder whether they are really there because they're good or there because they're lucky.
Why slap them on the wrist with feather when you can belt them over the head with a sledgehammer.
My, I like Judy Holliday! She looks like a Monet model. And she's so - so defenseless. I like defenseless people. They're the best.
Without discipline, there's no life at all.
As for me, prizes are nothing. My prize is my work.
The terrible thing about acting in the theater is that you have to do it at night.
If you're given a choice between money and sex appeal, take the money. As you get older, the money will become your sex appeal.
I like to move fast, and wearing high heels was tough, and low heels with a skirt is unattractive. So pants took over.
I think all good actors are personalities. If they're not, they're not stars. What makes you a star is horsepower.
To be loved is very demoralizing
I don't believe in marriage. It's bloody impractical. 'To love, honor, and obey.' If it weren't, you wouldn't have to sign a contract.
He's worked his entire life and he's never lived a single moment, I mean not a moment, in the real world.
My greatest strength is common sense. I'm really a standard brand - like Campbell's tomato soup or Baker's chocolate.
Enemies are so stimulating.
The only time I am ever miserable is when I do something just for the money.
Cold sober, I find myself absolutely fascinating.
I was brought up by two extremely intelligent people who gave me the greatest gift that man can give anyone, and that is freedom from fear.
Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I'm past that age.
Listen to the song of life.
All my life, I've stayed at parties too long because I didn't know when to go.
If you survive long enough, you're revered - rather like an old building.
It's life isn't it? You plow ahead and make a hit. And you plow on and someone passes you. Then someone passes them. Time levels.
Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.
It's how you live that really counts
I don't fear death, it must be like a long sleep.
People who want to be famous are really loners. Or they should be.
A sharp knife cuts the quickest and hurts the least.
Our Constitution was not intended to be used by ... any group to foist its personal religious beliefs on the rest of us.
I don't regret anything I've ever done; as long as I enjoyed it at the time
Wouldn't it be great if people could get to live suddenly as often as they die suddenly?
You can say or write anything about me you like. Just don't, for any reason, ever tell the truth.
Everyone thought I was bold and fearless and even arrogant, but inside I was always quaking.
I was fearless...and lawless.
I love rain. It's lucky, I always think.
Plain women know more about men than beautiful ones do. But beautiful women don't need to know about men. It's the men who have to know about beautiful women.
Two of an actress's greatest assets are love and pain. A great actress, even a good actress, must have plenty of both in her life.
I find a woman's point of view much grander and finer than a man's.
Only the really plain people know about love - the very fascinating ones try so hard to create an impression that they soon exhaust their talents.
Not everyone is lucky enough to understand how delicious it is to suffer.
I could peel you like a pear and god himself would see the justice in it.
Life is very hard, isn't it? It does kill you, after all.
Only when a woman decides not to have children, can a woman live like a man. That's what I've done.
Bogart was like Henry Fonda - proud and happy to be an actor.
Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four.
I have had twenty years of perfect companionship with a man among men. He is a rock and a protection. I have never regretted it.
It is the ordinary woman who knows something about love; the gorgeous ones are too busy being gorgeous.
Loved people are loving people.
You don't pick who you fall in love with. There are so few people to love. It's hard for one adult to even like another. Almost impossible.
I don't think that work ever really destroyed anybody. I think that lack of work destroys them a hell of a lot more.
How wonderful are the women and men in the world who feed us. Especially those who feed us with no salary. The mothers—I thought. The wives.
I have always lived my life exactly as I wanted. I've tried to please no one but myself... but I'm entirely content. I can sit back in my old age and not regret a single moment, not wish to change a single thing. It's what I wish for you...a life with no regrets.
Trying to be fascinating is an asinine position to be in.
What acting means is that you've got to get out of your own skin.
I was born lucky, and I have lived lucky. What I had was used. What I still have is being used. Lucky.
Children need boundaries, so they can know how far they have to go to get beyond them.
I have loved and been in love. There's a big difference.
I thought, can you think of any really good reason not to do it? Except that, oh, I'm so shy, or oh, my private life, or oh, are they going to find out how boring I am? You know? And that was the only reason now, in a sense, not to do television. Because it certainly is a method of expression, which has to be accepted as these things come along.
Life is full of censorship. I cant spit in your eye.
Just write the best you can about the things that concern you most. I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun.
Man who stands on toilet, gets high on pot!
Time is the stuff of which life is made.
I don't feel the slightest interest in the next world; I think it's here. And I think anything good that you're going to do, you should do for other people here and not so you can try to have a happy time in the next world.
It's either some kind of electricity or some kind of energy. I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, I've got it.
A boy sows a wild oat or two, the world winks. A girl does the same -- scandal.
The lack of work destroys people.
I've always thought men and women are not too well suited to each other. It's inevitable that they should come together, but, again, how well suited are they to live together in the same house?
Now how can anybody look at that and not believe in God? I mean, how can anybody look at this and not believe there is some higher power, some divine force at work in the universe greater than Man, some god that created it, that created all this, that created us?
It's a bore - B-O-R-E - when you find you've begun to rot.
I am a total me, me, Me person.
Its a force of life, sex; you cant deny the thrill of riding high, wide and handsome with someone you love.
Life's what's important. Walking, houses, family. Birth and pain and joy - and then death.
The shakes stop if you drink enough, but then so does everything else.
Who is Katharine Hepburn? It took me a long time to create that creature.
When a man says he likes a woman in a skirt, I tell him to try one.
If you lead a public life, people are much more on to you than you think.
― Katharine Hepburn Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
