“Actors are prone to think too much of themselves and too much of the affairs of other people. Gossip and frivolity in the theatre have killed many a promising career. The first maxim I would teach all beginners on the stage is this, by Augustin Daly. ‘A sure way to Success--Mind your business: A sure way to Happiness--Mind your own business!’ I read that on a sign in the waiting room of Daly’s Theatre, more than thirty-five years ago, and I made up my mind if ever I had a theatre of my own I’d put it up where my actors could see it,--and I did. It’s over the Call Board at my theatre now. The second maxim I would teach actors is this: ‘Never fake on the stage. The public will always catch you and never forgive you!’” “The day of the drunken actor, like that of the drunken statesman and the drunken doctor, has gone forever.” “Try with all your might to think sweet and happy thoughts--and in time you will come to have faith in real things and so will understand life.” “Life is very short, and happiness an elusive will-o’-the-wisp--a wraith of the night of Time who beckons and beckons, and when we try to follow him, escapes us very easily.” “The ‘star’ actors of to-day lack that careful schooling and full equipment conspicuous in all the great ‘stars’ of twenty-five, thirty, fifty years ago, and which is to be acquired only through the old-time stock system. According to the method of those days, it was never possible for the actor to play the same part many times in succession. He was obliged to demonstrate ability not only in many parts but through a period of many years, and thus to establish himself deservedly in the good opinion of the public.... I doubt whether any of the young ‘stars’ could play as many and as great a variety of parts and play them as well as the ‘stars’ of former days,--although striking successes are made repeatedly in characters especially written for some particular ‘star.’ ...” “In the old days we frequently produced plays with hardly anything at all to enhance them, either scenery or properties, but merely by a judicious use of clothes and lighting we made them effective: we did this because we did not have means to do them correctly. Nowadays, productions so made are hailed as novelties and the wonders of the age!”