Art & Creativity Quote by Uri Geller

The flex here isn’t just money; it’s legitimacy. Uri Geller starts by stripping away the most common cynical explanation for a celebrity’s hustle: need. “Independently well-off” functions like a preemptive alibi, a way of saying: I’m not grinding because I have to, I’m doing it because I matter. Then he pivots to the moralizing hinge of the line - “but I still do” - which recasts work as virtue rather than necessity. It’s the language of purpose, pitched to an audience trained to distrust opportunism but still impressed by productivity.

The list that follows is doing the real persuasion. “Write books” and “lecture around the world” are classic credential-signals, but the closer is the key: “work with scientists and governments.” For an entertainer whose fame is tangled with claims of paranormal ability and long-running skepticism, borrowing the authority of institutions is the strongest available currency. He’s not describing tasks; he’s naming validators. The subtext is: serious people take me seriously.

Contextually, this is a familiar post-1970s celebrity strategy: move from spectacle to statesmanship. Geller’s career sits in that liminal space where performance, belief, and media all trade on ambiguity. The quote tries to convert that ambiguity into stature. It’s less a confession than a positioning statement, designed to outflank critics by implying that if the establishment collaborates with him, the debate about “real vs. fake” is already settled. Whether or not it is, the rhetorical move is clean: wealth removes motive, activity implies mission, and proximity to power implies truth.