An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.

Clean fighting solves everything. It ends all bad blood and any ill feelings people have. That’s my thoughts.

I don’t write letters anymore.

You could imagine a language exactly like English except it doesn’t have connectives like ‚and‘ that allow you to make longer expressions. An infant learning truncated English would have no idea about this: They would just pick it up as they would standard English.

Life cannot be without relationship, but we have made it so agonizing and hideous by basing it on personal and possessive love. Can one love and yet not possess? You will find the true answer not in escape, ideals, beliefs but through the understanding of the causes of dependence and possessiveness.

Nobody’s ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.

Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

Speak low, if you speak love.

No one knows who is listening, say nothing you would not wish put in the newspapers.

Being flooded with information doesn’t mean we have the right information or that we’re in touch with the right people.

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

Silence speaks so much louder than screaming tantrums. Never give anyone an excuse to say that you’re crazy.

It’s hard for me to grasp the concept of somebody being nervous when I’m talking to them.

Every once in a while, you let a word or phrase out and you want to catch it and bring it back. You can’t do that. It’s gone, gone forever.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression – all of that is very important.

The kids never listen to you, especially the youngest ones.

I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

Extremely religious, legalistic people have a criticism or judgment about everyone and everything. They just have a way of bringing people down with what they say.

There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell-and then nothing ever really happens. I’m not like that I never shoot blanks.

Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.

When I talk to kids, I’m really listening. When I do that, we have a little bit of a bigger connection than me being Kendrick Lamar and you being a student. It’s almost like we’re friends. Because a friend listens.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

I once did a three-hour interview with Radio Oxford only to be told the microphone hadn’t picked me up.

There are folks who now know black families – like the Johnsons on ‚Black-ish‘ or the folks on ‚Modern Family.‘ They become part of who you are. You share their pains. You understand their fears. They make you laugh, and they change how you see the world.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one’s never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.

A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.

Using e-mail, I can communicate with scientists all over the world.

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

Every day I try to be in communication with the universe in an unconscious way.

Anyone who is practicing understanding and compassion can exemplify true power. Anyone can be a Buddha.

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

When you’re around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you’re supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.

One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he’d say, ‚Boss, we’ve got this, and that, and the other thing.‘ And I’d look at him and I’d say, ‚Good.‘

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

There can be no two opinions as to what a highbrow is. He is the man or woman of thoroughbred intelligence who rides his mind at a gallop across country in pursuit of an idea.

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

Being a good listener is absolutely critical to being a good leader; you have to listen to the people who are on the front line.

I’m terrified of losing my voice.

If I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn’t have been worth the Nobel Prize.

I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it’s a better way of telling the stories.

The American public’s a lot more sophisticated than we all give them credit for. And on complicated issues, I’m going to give them straight answers. And if it takes more than three minutes, I’m going to do it.

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you’re advancing. If you don’t you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.

Trying to read our DNA is like trying to understand software code – with only 90% of the code riddled with errors. It’s very difficult in that case to understand and predict what that software code is going to do.