We have an epidemic of insecure people in our society today.

I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.

One of the most terrible feelings in the world is knowing that someone else doesn’t like you. Especially when you don’t know what you’ve done to deserve it.

The dieting wars have got to stop.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

I have the Midas touch, in the way that when I hook up with a project, I feel, not speaking cocky or conceited, but there’s a confidence I have. I learned that from Muhammad Ali; I used to bodyguard him. He taught me about confidence. So when it comes to any job I work, I’m gonna do it good; I’m going to bring it over the top.

Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn’t write, I would stop breathing.

I’m going to stay active as long as I can politically, and with the Carter Center primarily, and if I’m able mentally and physically, will continue to be quite active.

If I didn’t have my films as an outlet for all the different sides of me, I would probably be locked up.

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

I like to let things breathe.

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment.

Everyone got kind of crazy with me mentioning I was in love with a woman.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

I think a certain amount of stress in life is good. The stress of just working, which takes effort – I think it keeps you going.

I would probably have more in common with a whale than with a bourgeois married couple employed at worthy institutions that I would wipe from the face of the earth if it was given to me to do so.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.

I didn’t like the way I looked in pictures – when I saw myself on a digital camera, I was like, ‚Eesh.‘

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

Yes, some people say to me you’re too skinny, but never a skinny person says that to me, only people who could lose a few pounds say that.

We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.

Society is at odds with itself.

People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.

I was a grade B housewife, maybe a B minus. But when I got time to write, I would be unable to finish a sentence. I had anxiety attacks. Partly it was a way of personifying the situation because I couldn’t breathe. I was surrounded by people and by duties. I was a housewife and the children’s mother, and I was judged on how I performed those roles.

We are so conformist; nobody is thinking. We are all sucking up stuff; we have been trained to be consumers, and we are all consuming far too much.

I myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven’t belonged to any company or any system. It isn’t easy to live like this in Japan.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

Learning about climate change triggered my depression in the first place. But it was also what got me out of my depression, because there were things I could do to improve the situation. I don’t have time to be depressed anymore.

I’m much more comfortable and confident running out on the field in front of 70,000 people instead of standing in front of a camera trying to say some lines. The people who do that as a profession are very talented because it’s certainly not easy.

If I’d found out that Norman Mailer liked me. I’d have killed myself.

Clothing & fashion are kind of my security blanket, almost.

It’s very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.

Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

Our society strives to avoid any possibility of offending anyone – except God.

I started out in anthropology, so to me how society works, how people put themselves together and make things work, has always been a big interest.

I think that once you’ve had a few No. 1s in your career that you’ve kind of proven yourself, and I don’t feel the need to prove anything anymore.

Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance – the cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it; better, will preserve it longer, than the sad or sullen.

Hatred is self-punishment.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

I don’t think about the end game. I’ve got lots to occupy my mind. It’s the rage that keeps me going.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

When I step forward on the floor, I have the confidence that I’m the best player playing that night and that I am the most prepared at what I need to be doing.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

We live in a bewildering world.

There is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in the lunatic asylum.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

I think the first duty of society is justice.

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

‚Fame‘ exhausts me.

Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration.

He was so depressed, he tried to commit suicide by inhaling next to an Armenian.

Mystical references to society and its programs to help may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.

I was ready to quit music. It felt to me like music equalled death.

Confidence comes from discipline and training.