The World According to Walt

Who doesn’t love Walt Disney?

I put together some stirring, savory quotes from one of the greatest, most innovative minds of our time. We might all do well to mull them over and take them to heart.

Without inspiration we would perish.

It is good to have a failure while you're young because it teaches you so much. For one thing it makes you aware that such a thing can happen to anybody, and once you've lived through the worst, you're never quite as vulnerable afterward.

Disneyland is a work of love.

You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.

Somehow I can't believe there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C's. They are Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy and the greatest of these is Confidence. When you believe a thing, believe it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse.

People sort of live in the dark about things. A lot of young people think the future is closed to them, that everything has been done. This is not so. There are still plenty of avenues to be explored.

A man should never neglect his family for business.

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.

Every child is born blessed with a vivid imagination. But just as a muscle grows flabby with disuse, so the bright imagination of a child pales in later years if he ceases to exercise it.

I think of a newborn baby's mind as a blank book.

I don't believe in talking down to children. I don't believe in talking down to any certain segment. I like to kind of just talk in a general way to the audience. Children are always reaching.

There's nothing funnier than the human animal.

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

People who have worked with me say I am 'innocence in action'. They say I have the innocence and unself-consciousness of a child. Maybe I have. I still look at the world with uncontaminated wonder, and with all living things I have a terrific sympathy. It was the most natural thing in the world for me to imagine that mice and squirrels might have feelings just like mine.

Inside every sophisticated grownup adult is a little kid just dying to get out.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

We allow no geniuses around our Studio.

If we are to have a true and honest culture, we must be aware of the self-appointed tyrant who puts a fence around painting or art or music or literature and shouts 'This is my preserve. Think as I do or keep out.'

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

I go right straight out for the adult. As I say, for the honest adult. Not the sophisticates. Not these characters that think they know everything and you can't thrill them anymore. I go for those people that retain that something, you know, no matter how old they are; that little spirit of adventure, that appreciation of the world of fantasy and things like that. I go for them. I play to them. There's a lot of them. You know?

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

I do not like to repeat successes, I like to go on to other things.

Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.

I believe in being an innovator.

There are fashions in reading, even in thinking. You don't have to follow them unless you want to. On the other hand, watch out! Don't stick too closely to your favorite subject. That would keep you from adventuring into other fields. It's silly to build a wall around your interests.

Girls bored me - they still do. I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I've ever known.

Deeds rather than words express my concept of the part religion should play on everyday life.

All right. I'm corny. But I think there's just about a-hundred-and-forty-million people in this country that are just as corny as I am.

Everyone needs deadlines. Even the beavers. They loaf around all summer, but when they are faced with the winter deadline, they work like fury. If we didn't have deadlines, we'd stagnate.

There is great comfort and inspiration in the feeling of close human relationships and its bearing on our mutual fortunes - a powerful force, to overcome the "tough breaks" which are certain to come to most of us from time to time.

Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children.

People look at you and me to see what they are supposed to be. And, if we don't disappoint them, maybe, just maybe, they won't disappoint us.

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 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.

Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards - the things we live by and teach our children - are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.

When people laugh at Mickey Mouse, it's because he's so human; and that is the secret of his popularity.

Why do we have to grow up? I know more adults who have the children's approach to life. They're people who don't give a hang what the Joneses do. You see them at Disneyland every time you go there. They are not afraid to be delighted with simple pleasures, and they have a degree of contentment with what life has brought - sometimes it isn't much, either.

Your dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.

Whenever I go on a ride, I'm always thinking of what's wrong with the thing and how it can be improved.

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.

When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.

I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn't know how to get along without it.

You reach a point where you don't work for money.

I have no use for people who throw their weight around as celebrities, or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous.

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

It's something that will never be finished. Something that I can keep developing... and adding to.

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.

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

The era we are living in today is a dream of coming true.

I only hope that we don't lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse.