I’ve always said to be funny, you have to smart. One of my all-time favorite funny men, Jim Carrey is a perfect example of this. His humor is often low-brow, slap-schtick, and just simply goofy – but he is a brilliant guy. As his career expanded, so did his versatility as an actor, and we saw Carrey go from Ace Ventura to the troubled Walter Sparrow in The Number 23. The highlight for me was his Portrayal of Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon. Carrey has also had some of the greatest acceptance speeches and late night TV show appearances in history. Below, is a quick collection of my favorite Jim Carrey quotes, a few of which are from a commencement speech that Carrey gave at the Maharishi University (video below). In this speech, Carrey said, “Like many of you, I was concerned about going out into the world and doing something bigger than myself, until someone smarter than myself made me realize that there is nothing bigger than myself. My soul is not contained within the limits of my body, my body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul.” Think about that…
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“Behind every great man, there is a woman rolling her eyes.”
“You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”
“Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don’t let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory.”
Read: “I Have a Dream”: 25 of the Greatest Quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.
“If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.”
“You know the trouble with real life? There’s no danger music.”
“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
“For the most sensitive among us, the noise can be too much.”
“It is better to risk starving to death than surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what’s left?”
“I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my garden, and I go, ‘Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.”
“You are ready and able to do beautiful things in this world, and as you walk through those doors today, you will only have two choices: love or fear. Choose love, and don’t ever let fear turn you against
Read: Mind of the Dragon: 31 Quotes from the Master, Bruce Lee
“As far as I can tell, it’s just about letting the universe know what you want and then working toward it while letting go of how it comes to pass.”
“I practiced making faces in the mirror and it would drive my mother crazy. She used to scare me by saying that I was going to see the devil if I kept looking in the mirror. That fascinated me even more, of course.”
“I love playing ego and insecurity combined.”
