Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction.

We’re going to have the best-educated American people in the world.

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.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

Every movie I make teaches me something. That’s why I keep making them.

Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.

I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t.

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike.

We dissect failure a lot more than we dissect success.

Advertising works most effectively when it’s in line with what people are already trying to do. And people are trying to communicate in a certain way on Facebook – they share information with their friends, they learn about what their friends are doing – so there’s really a whole new opportunity for a new type of advertising model within that.

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

The prospect of dating someone in her twenties becomes less appealing as you get older. At some point in your life, your tolerance level goes down and you realize that, with someone much younger, there’s nothing really to talk about.

The simplification of anything is always sensational.

You may be able to read Bernard Shaw’s plays, you may be able to quote Shakespeare or Voltaire or some new philosopher; but if you in yourself are not intelligent, if you are not creative, what is the point of this education?

Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.

If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.

When your mother asks, ‚Do you want a piece of advice?‘ it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.

Harvard makes mistakes too, you know. Kissinger taught there.

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.

The book you don’t read won’t help.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

It’s a rather rude gesture, but at least it’s clear what you mean.

There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

To me, it’s OK to have differences. But we don’t have to be mad about it. You know? And I think that’s where sometimes we get so passionate that we – you know, it turns into anger.

War is so complex; human nature is so complex. There’s no filmmaker who has ever figured it out perfectly.

There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me.

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

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

There’s very little advice in men’s magazines, because men don’t think there’s a lot they don’t know. Women do. Women want to learn. Men think, ‚I know what I’m doing, just show me somebody naked.‘

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

Being a full human being is difficult, frightening, and problematical.

We would like a stable policy framework, and whatever incentives and tax structures are there should be made known to investors upfront. There should be credibility, clarity and continuity in both policy formulation and its implementation.

What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law.

The major advances in speed of communication and ability to interact took place more than a century ago. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph was far more radical than that from telephone to email!

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.

He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

What women need to understand is that men don’t communicate. It’s not intentional or on purpose. We’re just not as emotional. You ladies feel like you have to express yourselves.

I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

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.

A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.

I am no supporter of factory labor for children, but I have never joined with those who clamored against proper work of children on farms outside their school hours.

In my divorce, I stood up and said to my ex-wife, ‚Hey, I messed up. This had nothing to do with you. I didn’t understand what marriage was. I cheated. I was wrong. We couldn’t fix it; it got worse. I stepped away because I didn’t want it to get any worse. You’re the mother of my kids – I don’t want to hate you.‘

Love is a really scary thing, and you never know what’s going to happen. It’s one of the most beautiful things in life, but it’s one of the most terrifying. It’s worth the fear because you have more knowledge, experience, you learn from people, and you have memories.

I never enjoyed school and I was never that good at school so leaving wasn’t the biggest thing, but the social aspect of school, leaving your friends, you lose contact with them a bit and now I have more friends at the race track than the friends I keep in touch with at school.

What charitable 1 percenters can’t do is assume responsibility – America’s national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts.