Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.

I did my utmost to ensure that everyone below me in the chain of command felt comfortable approaching me with concerns, ideas, thoughts, and even disagreements.

Some sarcasm is best told simply.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.

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.

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.

I wasn’t very good in academics, but I could have been if I could have studied well. I was a smart kid.

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.

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

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.

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.

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.

My readers – and I get 400 emails for a day, my readers normally they say, well, you understand me, and I answer, you do understand me also. We are in the same level.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

The fact is, I was never too bright in school. I ain’t ashamed of it, though. I mean, how much do school principals make a month?

In order to have friends, you must first be one.

God always takes the simplest way.

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?

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

He that speaks much, is much mistaken.

When I was young, an eccentric uncle decided to teach me how to lie. Not, he explained, because he wanted me to lie, but because he thought I should know how it’s done so I would recognise when I was being lied to.

People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people – and that social norm is just something that has evolved over time.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

I’m a meathead. I can’t help it, man. You’ve got smart people and you’ve got dumb people.

I have a family, loving aunts, and a good home. No, on the surface I seem to have everything except my one true friend. All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time. I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem.

You have to be careful about how much you reveal to people that look up to you so much.

Back, you know, a few generations ago, people didn’t have a way to share information and express their opinions efficiently to a lot of people. But now they do. Right now, with social networks and other tools on the Internet, all of these 500 million people have a way to say what they’re thinking and have their voice be heard.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another – until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.

There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.

I had a great time being a salesman because of the pitches that I gave when I was selling shoes. However, I don’t think I’m as well versed in shoes as I am in comedy. Being a salesman was all about being a people person, and I enjoy being around people. I also love talking to people – which is why I think I did so well.

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

It’s never happened in history that every region in the world could affect every other region simultaneously. The Roman empire and the Chinese empire didn’t know much about each other and had no means of interacting. Now we have every continent able to reach every other.

Counsel with your parents is a privilege at any age.

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

Silence is argument carried out by other means.

I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.

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.

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

But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

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

Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

Dialogue means debates and everyone’s point of view.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

I like it when someone tells me ‚I don’t agree.‘ This is a true collaborator. When they say ‚Oh, how great, how great, how great,‘ that’s not useful.

Don’t ever call a guy first. The thing they want the most is whatever they can’t have. It sounds really juvenile, but it works.

I want to be a man who is truthful and who won’t let pride get in the way of my ripping myself open to my partner and saying, ‚Here I am. This is me.‘ I feel there’s something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable.

Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of ‚like‘ has spread through the idiom of the young. And it’s true that in some cases the term has become simultaneously a crutch and a tic, driving out the rest of the vocabulary as candy expels vegetables.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Luckily for me, people don’t scream at me that much in my everyday life.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.