People look at the same passage, and one person will say this is the best thing he’s ever read, and another person will say it’s absolutely idiotic. I mean, there’s no way to reconcile those two things. You just have to forget the whole business of what people are saying.

I remember being in Japan when Destiny’s Child put out ‚Independent Women,‘ and women there were saying how proud they were to have their own jobs, their own independent thinking, their own goals. It made me feel so good, and I realized that one of my responsibilities was to inspire women in a deeper way.

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins.

I am just one human being.

Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

How can one preach goodness and love to men without at the same time offering them an interpretation of the World that justifies this goodness and this love?

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you’re wrinkled.

Only the aspirants for president are fool enough to believe what they read in the newspapers.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Too much of what is called ‚education‘ is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.

Rational discussion is useful only when there is a significant base of shared assumptions.

Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.

I don’t like to give advice. I like to give people information because everyone’s life is different, and everyone’s journey is different.

I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that. But everyone else is kind of, with their calculating – is this the exact right mix? I think that’s – to me it’s anti-comedy. It’s more about PC-nonsense.

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.

Humans cannot avoid trying to influence others. Everything we say or do is examined and interpreted by others for clues as to our intentions.

It’s not simply to say, ‚My colleagues are wrong, and I would do it this way,‘ but the greatest dissents do become court opinions.

I don’t pretend to understand the Universe – it’s a great deal bigger than I am.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

Man can be understood only by ascending from physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. In other words, he is first of all a cosmic problem.

I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries.

I see the face of a child. He lives in a great city. He is black. Or he is white. He is Mexican, Italian, Polish. None of that matters. What matters, he’s an American child.

Debates, I hate.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

The Christian’s Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.

In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.

It’s nice to be included in people’s fantasies but you also like to be accepted for your own sake.

Secretly we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be.

One of the things that was really an issue was I did not want to just be a woman secretary of state. I wanted to be a secretary of a state who was a woman, but not just chosen for that particular reason.

I don’t want enemies. I want friends, and I want them in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and loving whoever they want to.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.

Most people are happy being average. Most are happy being faceless in a sea of faces.

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.

When we’re looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, is able to bend and, most of all, embraces us for our strengths and struggles.

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

The 14th Amendment was recognized right away to be problematic. The concept of person was both too narrow and too broad, and the courts went to work to overcome both of those flaws.

I don’t hate women – they just sometimes make me mad.

I think people should feel encouraged to be themselves.

Freedom is relative.

When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.

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

I am who I am and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record.

It’s always interesting about God because it’s like all of the religions in the world say that they pray to the same God, and yet they ask that same one God to divide itself up and agree with this one and fight against that one.

I’ve never been one to sit back and go, ‚I’d better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don’t want to lose them.‘

The best leaders understand the motivations of their team members and know their people – their lives and their families. But a leader must never grow so close to subordinates that one member of the team becomes more important than another, or more important than the mission itself.

I’m not big on flak jackets and tie-dyed shirts. You know, that’s not me.

There is no such things as ‚best‘ in the world of individuals.

It has not yet become obvious to me that there’s no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there’s no real problem, but I’m not sure there’s no real problem.

The media need superheroes in science just as in every sphere of life, but there is really a continuous range of abilities with no clear dividing line.

I often advocate that we look at many sides of an issue, walk in someone else’s shoes, and identify and reject false choices.

Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old.

What the mind doesn’t understand, it worships or fears.