Success Quote by Lee Strasberg

Strasberg’s line is less motivational poster than acting-room ultimatum: your imagination can only reach as far as your capacity to recognize greatness in the first place. Coming from the architect of American Method acting, “see” isn’t casual. It means observe with discipline, study behavior, watch what excellence looks like in bodies and choices. Dreaming, in his world, isn’t escapism; it’s craft. The question needles students who want inspiration without apprenticeship, as if emotional truth can be willed into being.

The subtext is about permission and literacy. Greatness isn’t only talent; it’s a vocabulary of possibility. If your inner gallery is stocked with mediocrity, your “dream” will default to the familiar. Strasberg is also quietly arguing against cultural scarcity: the way institutions, critics, and gatekeepers narrow the frame of what counts as great, especially for those outside the canon. If you’re never shown that someone like you can be transcendent, the ambition to become transcendent starts to feel like vanity.

Context matters: Strasberg came up as theater professionalized in the U.S., as film and stage acting shifted toward psychological realism, and as performers were trained to mine memory and sensation for truth. His question doubles as an aesthetic manifesto: greatness is legible. It leaves traces you can learn to notice. Only then does dreaming become something more than wishful thinking - it becomes a plan with emotional muscle.