Sylvester Stallone, an iconic figure in the action genre, is an American actor, screenwriter and director best known for creating and starring in the Rocky and Rambo film series.
Born in 1946 in New York City, he overcame early hardships, including a facial nerve damage from birth and his parents’ divorce.
He became interested in acting during his studies at the American College of Switzerland and the University of Miami.
Stallone made his screen debut in 1970, but struggled to find mainstream success until his breakthrough with “Rocky” in 1976.
Inspired by a match between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner, the movie became a critical and commercial success and led to seven sequels.
Related: Anthony Hopkins Quotes from the Iconic Actor and Brad Dourif Quotes from the Famous American Actor
Stallone also launched another successful series, “Rambo”, in 1982. Though some of his later films had limited domestic success, his appeal to overseas audiences remained strong.
Stallone’s ventures outside the action genre include the drama “Cop Land” (1997) and the comedy “Grudge Match” (2013).
I have collected some of the best quotes of Sylvester Stallone.
Top Sylvester Stallone Quotes
1. “Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
2. “You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
3. “I am not the richest, smartest or most talented person in the world, but I succeed because I keep going and going and going.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
4. “Success is usually the culmination of controlling failures.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
5. “When you’re scared, when you’re hanging on, when life is hurting you, then you’re going to see what you’re really made of.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
6. “I believe any success in life is made by going into an area with a blind and furious optimism.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
7. “Going that one more round when you don’t think you can – that’s what makes all the difference in your life.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
8. “Dreams cost nothing. They are free. The hard part is just keeping them going.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
9. “Now if you know what you’re worth. Then go out and get what you’re worth.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
10. “Every time I’ve failed, people had me out for the count, but I always come back.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
11. “Don’t discuss your dreams. Pursue them!” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
12. “I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
13. “There’s a natural law of karma that vindictive people, who go out of their way to hurt others, will end up broke and alone.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
14. “The world meets nobody halfway. When you want something, you gotta take it.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
15. “I learned the real meaning of love. Love is absolute loyalty. People fade, looks fade, but loyalty never fades. You can depend so much on certain people, you can set your watch by them. And that’s love, even if it doesn’t seem very exciting.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
16. “Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that!” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
17. “When I was in junior high school, the teacher voted me the student most likely to end up in the electric chair.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
18. “Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
19. “Every rep I did on chin-ups, on squats with 500 pounds, I never said, to myself, ‘Oh, my God, another rep.’ I said, ‘Yes, another rep, because that will make my dream turn into a reality.’” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
20. “Plan B. You’ve always got to have a Plan B.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
Best Sylvester Stallone Quotes
21. “I’d rather do something I love badly than to feel bad about not doing something I love.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
22. “The older I get the more things I gotta leave behind.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
23. “Nothing is real if you don’t believe in who you are!” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
24. “I think there comes a time when you realize that you need God in your life, God’s Word, and the spiritual guidance that only He can give.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
25. “Don’t be gullible, use life before it uses you. Understand there are no free lunches, and for every action you take, there’s a reaction.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
26. “You have to be really loyal to the people that supported you when you were coming up.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
27. “Life is more than sunglasses and hit movies. Reality – that’s the main event.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
28. “When life hits you pretty hard, you can go into a dark corner.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
29. “The church is the gym of the soul.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
30. “Love is absolute loyalty. People fade, looks fade, but the loyalty never fades.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
31. “You have to grab life by the throat and squeeze before it grabs you by your neck and breaks it. Own your destiny.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
32. “When you’re pushed killing is as easy as breathing.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
33. “I’m not rightwing, I’m not leftwing. I love my country.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
Inspirational Sylvester Stallone Quotes
34. “The character of Rocky was built on the idea that he was chosen to do something. That’s why the first image in Rocky is the picture of Christ.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
35. “If you think people are inherently good, you get rid of the police for 24 hours – see what happens.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
36. “Gangster is the truest friend I can ever ask for.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
37. “When boxers are in the ring, they’re simple. It’s when the fight is over, that’s when the other fight, the real fight, begins. That’s the problem.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
38. “If I’d succeeded right away at acting I wouldn’t have sought out writing.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
39. “Once in one’s life, for one mortal moment, one must make a grab for immortality; if not, one has not lived.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
40. “Clothing is the first step to building a character.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
41. “Study people’s success stories hard. Study their failures even harder.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
42. “You’re a disease. And I’m the cure.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
43. “Every morning, I crawl out of bed. I sit there and think, ‘Do I really need this?’ And I drag myself to the gym in my garage. It’s not fun. I hate it. I work out alone. Weights.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
44. “I thought I had reached a point in life where everything would be smooth. But it is not. It just gets more jagged and pitted and filled with turns that take you into the dark recesses of your mind. It never seems to get easy.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
45. “I’m usually taken for a non-intellectual, a person of limited intelligence. I don’t know why, but I figure it’s because physically I don’t look intelligent.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
Famous Sylvester Stallone Quotes
46. “In the movies, I kill guys with an axe. In real life, I can’t control a nine-year-old girl.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
47. “Through failure, I found different ways to reverse my problems and get into the mainstream of Hollywood.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
48. “I thought marriage was tough. Golf’s like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel! It’s a psychological game that gets into your blood.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
49. “Back there I could fly a gunship, I could drive a tank, I was in charge of million dollar equipment, back here I can’t even hold a job PARKING CARS!” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
50. “Movies are the work of a collective conscious. It takes 500-800 people on a movie to complete a vision.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
51. “When crossing someone’s borders you have to be prepared to engage in a war that is far more brutal than if it were to take place on neutral territory.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
52. “If bad decorating was a hanging offense, there’d be bodies hanging from every tree!” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
53. “To me, the most perfect screenplay ever written will be one word, when you finally reduce it down to that. Until then, writing will be an imperfect form of communication.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
54. “You can actually alter a person’s perception when they’re that young. I mean, it can affect them in a very positive way.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
55. “I feel that America is like a child that grew up so strong and so fast and so tall that it became self-conscious about its size and started to stoop over so as not to offend anyone.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
56. “Training and working in Philadelphia is a very unusual situation because that city does believe that Rocky is real. No one calls me Sylvester, it’s Rocky.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
57. “I have all kinds of chest injuries; I tore my vein during ‘Rocky II’ and had 60 stitches. If you’ve seen ‘Rocky Balboa,’ you’ll know how bad they look.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
58. “I have great expectations for the future, because the past was highly overrated.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
59. “The phenomenal thing that happened to me is that I was able to create two memorable men: one is the ultimate optimist, Rocky, and then you have Rambo, the ultimate pessimist. You’re going to always be remembered for them, no matter what you do.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
60. “When I was a kid, my mother used to feed me mashed-potato sandwiches, brussel sprout sandwiches; my brain cells were starving from lack of food. I’ll eat anything. I’ll eat dirt.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
61. “When you are young, you often think that the world spins around you. You think you can do anything, can take the world on your shoulders.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
Inspiring Sylvester Stallone Quotes
62. “The trouble with remakes is that people fall in love with the original. It’s like peanut butter. If you try to change the taste of peanut butter, you’re in trouble.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
63. “In Philadelphia, there’s no delineation, they address me as Rocky, for real. They’ll say things like: “Rocky, do you like this coat?” Or: “Rock, say hi to my sister.” Or: “Yo Rock, I know a great restaurant.” There’s no Sylvester. Even the Mayor goes: “It’s good to have Rocky here today.”” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
64. “I abused my body so much throughout my career that I am literally held together by glue. The stuff I took thickens the bones and reinforces the tendons.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
65. “Rocky would definitely run for councilman. Maybe mayor. But these people are actually most effective in the family unit. That’s where they shine.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
66. “I guess the best thing I do of all is ride. Horsemanship, I have a natural flair for it.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
67. “The men in Vietnam weren’t allowed to fight the war with any kind of concern to win by the government. It was like a war of attrition.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
68. “Sometimes I write with music on, and if I’m in a good flow, I don’t even hear it.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
69. “I was an ambitious child and I tended to be scatterbrained. If I was at school and saw a bird outside the window I wanted to follow it. I was adventurous.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
70. “I’m a patriot of the heart.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
71. “In fact, every day I’ll read a chapter of some art book. I don’t know why. It’s just a habit.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
72. “I love art more than anything in the world except for my family.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
73. “For ‘Rocky II,’ I got a torn pectoral muscle, I got all beat up inside, I had to have an operation to splice things back together.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
74. “Nothing’s harder than writing. There’s no comparison. With directing, you can bounce a lot of ideas around. There’s tremendous support – you’ve got editors and sound mixers. With writing, it’s all you, and it’s just crippling when people tear up your pages.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
75. “You know you’ve been around when they start to remake your own movies when you’re still alive.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
76. “My favorite snack would have to be Fritos, no doubt about it. Fritos and mayonnaise. I know. Really healthy, isn’t it?” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
Motivational Sylvester Stallone Quotes
77. “When I’m doing a movie, I eat the same thing every day. For lunch, it’s tuna salad or chicken salad and cole slaw. That’s it. For dinner it’s either veal and rice, fish and rice or steak and rice. It gets boring; boy, does it get boring.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
78. “I have two lovely sons and some good memories, but I’ve had a rather tumultuous personal life. It hasn’t been dull; I’ve been the Hiroshima of love.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
79. “Voices are like fingerprints, from Cagney to Bogart. They never lost it. My voice is instrumental in categorizing me.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
80. “I was on cruise control from ’85 to ’95, and it was my fault. There were a lot of self-inflicted wounds, when I was not doing any original material. I wasn’t directing. I wasn’t writing. That’s not who I am.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
81. “Until America, door to door, takes every handgun, this is what you’re gonna have. It’s pathetic. It really is pathetic. It’s sad. We’re living in the Dark Ages over there.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
82. “To know that the odds are so high that only through the perishing of your life will the minions survive, that’s love. That’s heroism.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
83. “Movies are a whole different ball-game, now. It’s much more of a business – very scientific.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
84. “I really have very little aspirations about acting because I think that probably the best things have come and gone. I would like to focus on writing and directing. I love writing and directing even though writing can be incredibly painful and lonely. I get great satisfaction from doing it.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
85. “There aren’t a lot of opportunities for that rite of passage that makes you a man. War is one of them, and violent sports are another.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
86. “I think there’s a kind of built-in arrogance to anyone who considers themself an artist. They want to feel as though like they can run the whole spectrum. “I can do it all. I can do minimalism, and I can do classical art.” Well, that’s not true.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
87. “Action is always seen as the bottom rung of thespian endeavor, that’s just the way it is.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
88. “Action film is really easy to do, you just get in a car and smash through things and it’s called action. The real key is what happens between the action when it’s quiet. Loud is easy. Quiet, real hard.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
89. “Certain characters, mostly heroes, have to be the straight silent type; that is part of the make-up.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
90. “To be really artful, though, you have to be subjective and so singular.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
91. “I just fight in my movies, never in real life.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
92. “I would never run for president.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
93. “I think that’s become passe, but if you can surround yourself with a kind of monument to yourself and your family – a statement – and you can afford it, then that’s a noble project.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
94. “I’ve always boxed a certain way. But with Rocky, the character himself had to be kind of awkward. So I had to learn to fight that way.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
95. “I do believe that American should deal from strength.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
96. “Often people going into directing want to learn as much as they possibly can about “technique.” And I say the hell with that.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
97. “I want to turn my attention to movies about love relationships. Exploring the female psyche – there ought to be some interesting discoveries there. Love stories. If you do it right, people want to hear romantic dialog.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
98. “I think I came along at an opportune time. I don’t know if that would happen anymore, because the whole way of doing business in Hollywood has changed.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
99. “If you don’t have a mountain, build one and then climb it. And after you climb it, build another one; otherwise you start to flatline in your life.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
100. “People asked if I could have played the Terminator. Are you kidding? Not a chance, I never could have played the Terminator.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
101. “There’ll never be a ‘Rocky IV.’ You gotta call a halt.” ~ (Sylvester Stallone).
