Keanu Reeves Quotes: Wisdom from a Philosopher-Actor

Keanu Reeves is an actor, musician, and producer who has been in the entertainment industry for over three decades. He is known for his diverse roles, including Neo in the Matrix Trilogy, John Wick in John Wick, and Ted in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. In addition to his acting career, Reeves has also gained popularity for his inspiring and insightful quotes. This article explores some of Keanu Reeves’ most memorable quotes and what we can learn from them.

 

Introduction

Keanu Reeves is not only a talented actor but also a wise philosopher. His quotes are a testament to his wisdom and life experiences. In this article, we will explore some of his most inspiring and thought-provoking quotes.

 

Keanu Reeves: A Brief Biography

Keanu Reeves was born in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 2, 1964. He spent most of his childhood in Canada and attended several high schools. Reeves started his acting career in theater productions before transitioning to film. He gained popularity in the 1980s for his roles in movies such as River’s Edge and Dangerous Liaisons. However, his breakthrough role was in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure in 1989. Since then, Reeves has become one of the most recognizable actors in Hollywood, starring in several blockbuster movies.

 

Keanu Reeves’ Philosophy of Life

Keanu Reeves has a unique philosophy of life that emphasizes the importance of kindness, humility, and compassion. He believes in treating everyone with respect, regardless of their status or background. Reeves also emphasizes the importance of living in the present moment and finding joy in simple things.

 

Keanu Reeves Quotes on Happiness

  • “Happiness is sometimes a blessing, but often a conquest. The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts, and are willing to take risks.”
  • “It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary.”
  • “If you can make a woman laugh, you’re seeing the most beautiful thing on God’s earth.”

 

Keanu Reeves Quotes on Love

  • “The person you fall in love with really fast, you have to be very careful with that because you might be projecting a lot of stuff onto them.”
  • “You need to love yourself and be yourself, and that’s the only way you’re going to attract someone who complements you.”
  • “Love is not a feeling of happiness. Love is a willingness to sacrifice.”

 

Keanu Reeves Quotes on Success

  • “Money doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ve made a lot of money, but I want to enjoy life and not stress myself apart making movies.”
    • “Success is not something that just happens, it is something that you create.”
    • “The best way to guarantee a loss is to quit.”

 

Keanu Reeves Quotes on Failure

  • “It’s only failure if you don’t learn from it.”
  • “Every struggle in your life has shaped you into the person you are today. Be thankful for the hard times, they can only make you stronger.”
  • “I have a love interest in every one of my films: a gun.”

 

Keanu Reeves Quotes on Fear

  • “I try not to think about my fears. I face them head-on.”
  • “The things that scare me are the things that are going to make me grow.”
  • “Do not let your fears choose your destiny.”

 

Keanu Reeves Quotes on Mortality

  • “The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.”
  • “I’m just grateful to be here. I’m grateful to be alive.”
  • “The person who was your parent is going to leave, and you have to become your own parent.”

 

Keanu Reeves Quotes on Acting

  • “Acting allows me to tell a lot of stories, you know beg, borrow, or steal life experience.”
  • “The best way to learn anything is by doing it.”
  • “I love to act. It’s the best job in the world.”

 

Keanu Reeves Quotes on Creativity

  • “Art is about trying to find the good in people and making the world a more compassionate place.”
  • “The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.”
  • “You have to change your life if you’re not happy, and wake up if things aren’t going the way you want.”

 

Keanu Reeves Quotes on Technology

  • “I’m old school. I believe in reading books and doing things that require you to be present.”
  • “The internet is a significant tool, but it shouldn’t be a replacement for true human interaction.”
  • “Technology is cool, but you’ve got to use it as opposed to it using you.”

 

Keanu Reeves Quotes on Social Issues

  • “Falling in love and having a relationship are two different things.”
  • “People need to understand the value of what they have and not just give it away for nothing.”
  • “I cannot be part of a world where men dress their wives as prostitutes by showing everything that should be cherished.”

 

Conclusion

Keanu Reeves is not only a talented actor but also a wise philosopher. His quotes reflect his unique philosophy of life, emphasizing the importance of kindness, humility, and compassion. We can learn a lot from his life experiences and the wisdom he has shared. By applying his insights to our lives, we can improve our happiness, love, success, and creativity.

 

Phrases

-Life is good when you have a good sandwich.

-You have to change your life if you’re not happy, and wake up if things aren’t going the way you want.

-Sometimes simple things are the most difficult things to achieve.

-The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.

-Falling in love and having a relationship are two different things.

-Positive energy brings good feelings, and dark energy often means harm. But the destruction in dark energy is also a subtle aspect of construction, like how even forest fires have their benefits. Sometimes enemies are our best teachers, people can learn from their mistakes, destruction sometimes means rebirth.

Keanu Reeves Quotes

-Art is about trying to find the good in people, and making the world a more compassionate place.

-The recognition of the law of the cause and effect, also known as karma, is a fundamental key to understand how you’ve created your world, with actions of your body, speech and mind. When you truly understand karma, then you realize you are responsible for everything in your life. It is incredibly empowering to know that your future is in your hands.

-It’s always wonderful to get to know women, with the mystery and the joy and the depth. If you can make a woman laugh, you’re seeing the most beautiful thing on God’s Earth.

-I guess living without love, without experiencing it or being able to give it is pretty strong punishment.

-Nothing ever truly dies. The universe wastes nothing, everything is simply transformed.

-We are the sum of who we are. We pick certain things at certain moments that influenced us.

-I always felt a bit alone and isolated from other people…I did a lot of pretending as a child. It was my way of coping with the fact that I didn’t feel like I fit in.

-You need to be happy to live, I don’t.

-Money doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ve made a lot of money, but I want to enjoy life and not stress myself building my bank account. I give lots away and live simply, mostly out of a suitcase in hotels. We all know that good health is much more important.

-And it’s easy to stay grounded. The ground is very close. And we walk on it every day.

-All the dreams I dream are nightmares and those nightmares are the ones I live.

-I wish I could say something classy and inspirational, but that just wouldn’t be our style. … Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory… lasts forever.

Keanu Reeves Quotes

-When the people you love are gone, you’re alone.

-Money buys you the freedom to live your life the way you want.

-I believe in love at first sight. You want that connection, and then you want some problems.

-Energy can’t be created or destroyed, and energy flows. It must be in a direction, with some kind of internal, emotive, spiritual direction. It must have some effect somewhere.

-I’m a Virgo; it’s in my sign to be hard on myself.

-I had the classic 40 meltdown, I did. It’s embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.

-You know what is a nice thought? Retirement.

-There’s nothing wrong with being gay, so to deny it is to make a judgment.

-People were saying that David Geffen and I had gotten married and it just blew me away. Not that they thought I was gay, but that they thought I could land a guy that hot.

-Sure I believe in God and the Devil, but they don’t have to have pitchforks and a long white beard.

-I’m older and older. With any experience you have, you know more about yourself.

-Tattoos are interesting, but at the same time they are also a mask – you are exhibiting your past life on your body.

-I cried over beauty, I cried over pain, and the other time I cried because I felt nothing. I can’t help it. I’m just a cliché of myself.

-In my quiet, I was working something out.

-When I don’t feel free and can’t do what I want I just react. I go against it.

-I’m sorry my existence is not very noble or sublime.

-Grief changes shape, but it never ends.

-Kissing someone is pretty intimate, actually very intimate, and your heart always kind of skips a beat before you do that.

-It’s fun to be hopelessly in love. It’s dangerous, but it’s fun.

-Our dreams can teach us, instruct us, confuse us… sometimes I think they look to be considered. And in terms of like, they are an opportunity and I think they most certainly could be utilized to focus, to try and achieve – whether it’s looking for someone, or influencing us, or inspiring us.

-What sort of girls do i like? – They are all angels.
Keanu Reeves

-A relationship is an imaginative act, it’s an act of creation. Someone said to me the other day that a relationship between a person and a kid is unconditional; but the relationship between adults, to each other, is conditional, in a sense. But that condition can be the best kind.

-I thank the earth and the sky everyday for the opportunities I’ve had.

-Multi-culture is the real culture of the world – the pure race doesn’t exist.

-Violence is sometimes a very practical solution but I don’t think it is the ultimate solution. Owning a gun is not OK for me. But I could argue both sides. Why shouldn’t people own them? I’m not fundamentally against citizens having access to a weapon but I think it has complications. It’s probably not the wisest idea. Obviously, it has consequences. Personally, I do not own a weapon.

-Falling in love and having a relationship are two different things but yeah I can imagine that you can kind of – I think it depends on one’s psychological state. I think there are some people who are on the internet and can fall in love and seem to be in a certain psychological state and other people who are – who couldn’t quite do that.

-What would happen if you melted? You know, you never really hear this talked about much, but spontaneous combustion? It exists!… [people] burn from within… sometimes they’ll be in a wooden chair and the chair won’t burn, but there’ll be nothing left of the person. Except sometimes his teeth. Or the heart. No one speaks about this, but its for real.

Keanu Reeves Quotes

-I’m a meathead, man. You’ve got smart people, and you’ve got dumb people. I just happen to be dumb.

-You’re playing and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can’t move… you can’t breathe… because you’re in over your head. Like quicksand.

-The impact of falling in love for the first time has a special place in our arhitecture.

-How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I’ll say that. Wonder and terror.

-Life and art had a nice parallel, in the sense of coming together as strangers who are separate in prison who need to work together, getting to know each other.

-Luxury is the opportunity to experience quality, be it a place, a person or an object.

-Grief changes shape, but it never ends. People have a misconception that you can deal
with it and say, ‘It’s gone, and I’m better.’ They’re wrong.

-Mortality is very different when you’re 20 to when you’re 50.

-So many people have that relationship. The companionship. The connection. To our – to other beings, our pets. I hate to call them pets. But you know, to other creatures that we share our lives with.

-The inspiration really comes first from the character and the story. That vision of what the story is, and what the character is, the world that they inhabit and what the story wants to tell. That’s really what inspires me.

-I do think there must be some kind of interaction between your living life and the life that goes on from here.

-Letters are something from you. It’s a different kind of intention than writing an e-mail.

-I hope I get the bliss. And I know I’m going to have to work for it. But I’ve got to say, really, I have no kind of, can I say “secular religiosity”? … I don’t have a denominational sight.

-Because we’re actors we can pretend and fake it, but I’d rather the intimate investment was authentic.

-I am not handsome or sexy. Of course, it’s not like I am hopeless.

-One of the aspects I like about the film is that there is a kind of emotional, psychological discussion during the storytelling, … Before taking a drug, go through yourself, experience yourself, all your hopes and fears in your own time. Before the pharmacology, do the psychology.

Keanu Reeves Quotes

-I’m Mickey Mouse. They don’t know who’s inside the suit.

-I attempt to connect with my muse and go on demon rides.

-There’s a lot of great writing, and characters, and stories being told in television nowadays. And much more than there used to be. The opportunities to tell stories, because of the opportunities to show content. And so it’s drawing actors from cinema, movie actors, actors to where there’s a lot of opportunities to where you can tell stories.

-It’s hard to act in the morning. The muse isn’t even awake.

-Anything where there’s great enthusiasm, and a place to come share what you think is cool.

-‘Speed’ and ‘Point Break’ were a lot of running and jumping, and then ‘The Matrix Trilogy’ had a lot of fights and wire work and green screen elements.

-Eventually, it came to this place like, “I’d like to direct, but I need to find the story to tell.” Man of Tai Chi became the story to tell.

-I was hopeless at high school – I failed everything but Latin.

-I really took it in-house. The Constantine character has a kind of flesh-and-blood practical look at things that would seem, other people would use the word, occult or spiritual. But here, demons are real. So for me it was more taking it from the film itself. I didn’t really need to go outside the piece itself to inform me because the perspective on it, what the character does, was provided by the script.

-The blues have always had some of the best times, best feelings I’ve ever had.

-Fame is drag. The paparazzi culture is more pervasive than it used to be. On the positive side, it’s nice not to have to worry about bills.

-Environmental issues are on everyone’s mind. It’s part of our culture now and I can only applaud and laud anyone who is doing what they can and raising awareness.

-Performing an exorcism was like changing your oil. It’s a drag, but necessary.

-Sometimes when you make a film you can go away for three months and then come back and live your life. But this struck a much deeper chord. I don’t have the ability yet to speak about it in an objective.

-I hope I don’t become just an animation [with a digital film].

-When I work on a film, you know, I try to get or inhabit the body of the character -from the vision of the directors or how i think the character should be – so if it’s a film like SPEED, you hit the gym, you get to do some, train with SWAT People, hehe, but in general, I’m really focused and dedicated, and then in regular life, I don’t go to the gym as often.

Keanu Reeves Quotes

-Here comes 40. I’m feeling my age and I’ve ordered the Ferrari. I’m going to get the whole mid-life crisis package.

-I don’t know if that’s philosophy or if that’s something else, but to me it [digital filming] has an emotional feeling , that this materiality, the loss of the materiality.

-It carried quite a wallop. I have all the classic symptoms. Reflection. Where am I now? Where have I come from? What’s important? Dealing with the moment of a different kind of feeling for mortality. Shifting of the body. Contextualizing or reevaluating behaviors and values. All those kinds of things.

-I mean really wonderful. In teaching. Personal epiphanies. About life. About different perspectives-help with different perspectives that you have. You know what I mean? Relationships to nature. Relationships with the self. With other people. With events.

-The acting experience and the collaborating and creating the world, working on the piece, they’re the same joys.

-I like meeting directors. It can be helpful because sometimes when you meet filmmakers you find out if you like them and if they like you, and that is important in terms of considering a role. Choosing a role is all about whether I relate to the role and the story really. That’s the criteria.

-I went with an exorcist for a bit. I just want to know really practical things, like how do you hold someone possessed by the devil.

-On a good night, I get underwear, bras, and hotel-room keys thrown onstage… You start to think that you’re Tom Jones.

-I’ve been really fortunate to be able to do different kinds of films in different scales, different genres, different kinds of roles, and that is important to me.

-Our saving grace! Um, as a species [humans] we can be pretty warm and fuzzy. But maybe for this, it’s the adaptability, or the heart and soul. We’re not all that bad. I don’t really know!

-I try not to think about my life. I have no life. I need therapy.

-It’s the journey of self, I guess. You start with this kind of loner, outside guy, which a lot of people can relate to, and he goes out into the world.

-I don’t know any real jiu-jitsu or judo or anything. I do movie kung fu. With that, you can fake a punch, but you can’t really fake a judo throw. You can get help from the person who you’re throwing because they can kind of launch themselves.

-When I think about him, I think about him as John and John Wick. I think of John Wick being the assassin part of John. I would say that guy has strong will; never gives up; he’s kind; and there’s honor about him. He’s also a man of strength. There are even some vulnerabilities to him. Most importantly, he’s good at his job.

-And of course to work with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, and work with a wonderful, beautiful script directed by Nancy Meyers, it was really for me a dream come true.

-But I did ‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.’ They made a cereal out of it, so once you’ve had a cereal, it doesn’t get much more surreal than that. Surreal cereal.

-Sometimes, with the scale of a film, it’s like when I walked on the sets of “The Matrix,” especially in “Reloaded,” there was the city square, or in “Revolutions” with some of the machine world, you’re like, “Wow, this is a big playground,” which is fun to watch. But the acting experience and the collaborating and creating the world, working on the piece, they’re the same joys.

-Hallelujah! Amen! Christianity is so inherent in western story-telling, you can’t really get around it. But it wasn’t something that drew me to it more or less.

-The truth is often terrifying, which I think is one of the motifs of Larry and Andrew’s cinema. The cost of knowledge is an important theme. In the second and third films, they explore the consequences of Neo’s choice to know the truth. It’s a beautiful, beautiful story.

-I think the form, the Hollywood movie, I think the quality is obviously always going to be there and I think that the question of taste, there’s always a question of taste.

-Violence within the context of policing has a sense of control and power to it, whether it is dominance, getting what you want, or acting out of emotion. At the same time, it is not ultimately satisfying and [you are] trapped in the cycle.

-But I think we’re also just talking about the literacy of the audience. The visual literacy of the audience. They’ve seen so many images now, especially here in the States. There’s so much to look at, to watch. So the visual storytelling literacy is harder to impress.

-You want to play another kind of character in another genre, and it’s been something I’ve been trying to do if I can in the career so far, and it’s something I hope to continue because it’s interesting to me and you get to do different things as an actor.