I do believe that in order to be a successful negotiator that as a diplomat, you have to be able to put yourself into the other person’s shoes. Unless you can understand what is motivating them, you are never going to be able to figure out how to solve a particular problem.

I have spoken to Chinese leaders occasionally on human rights, but I’ve always done it in private.

The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors.

We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

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

Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.

There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.

If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.

Every loss of life is terrible.

The United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam.

No nation should threaten its neighbors by massing troops along the border.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one’s key to the experience of others.

We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.

All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract; or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience.

My earliest books focus almost entirely on psychological tools to help readers employ effective commonsense approaches to problems. There are no references to God or a higher self in the first 15 or so years of my publishing history.

I think business has to be stupider. I want to do really straightforward, stupid business – just talk to me like a 4-year-old. And I refuse to negotiate. I do not negotiate. I can collaborate. But I’m an artist, so as soon as you negotiate, you’re being compromised.

Whenever you’re going through a tough time, generally, you become more compassionate, you become softer, you become more thoughtful, kinder. These are all spiritual qualities that will help you to align yourself with God and God consciousness rather than with a split fear-based consciousness.

When you learn about the teaching and the practice of another tradition, you always have a chance to understand your own teaching and practice.

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.

A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.

Most negotiators are trying to get their way.

Don’t judge other people. For example, if you want God’s anointing to be on you for parenting, you need to be careful not to criticize other parents.

Iran has little capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to set it.

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.

The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.

I think it is a sin to look at another person as inferior to yourself because of race or because of ethnic background, and I think the greatest thing to do is to pray that God will give you love for them, and I do.

Most damage that others do us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.

When you hear people making hateful comments, stand up to them. Point out what a waste it is to hate, and you could open their eyes.

The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.

I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs.

It’s tough to negotiate from a position of weakness.

I’m not generally a sensitive person, but I tend to be more sensitive toward others and what they’re going through. I don’t know if that’s the healthiest thing, but it’s the truth.

I think ‚Dirty Harry‘ was probably sensitive toward the victims of violent crime.

Maleficent has suffered abuse in the past, and there’s a reason why she is now as furious as she is. And I think that children who have been outcast and abused in any way will relate to her. There’s a beautiful side to her; she’s not just a dark person. She has all these facets. And that is interesting.

The infinite faith I have in people’s ability to understand anything that makes sense has always been justified, finally, by their behavior.

A saint is tolerant and is attentive to the pleadings of other human beings, not only to spoken messages but to unspoken messages as well.

Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone.

Entrepreneurs are natural problem-solvers, which means that we always have ideas for new businesses popping into our heads. Having a lot of options is great, but sometimes it can be hard to focus on one when you are keen to move onto the next.

There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.

It’s really easy to have a nice philosophy about openness, but moving the world in that direction is a different thing. It requires both understanding where you want to go and being pragmatic about getting there.

I’ve never been a jealous person, and I’ve never felt built up by someone else’s failure – that’s a cheap thrill.

I don’t think culture is something you can describe.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

Write in such a way as that you can be readily understood by both the young and the old, by men as well as women, even by children.

One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.

A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.

It sometimes makes people feel better about themselves, you know, to put other people down, or make fun of them, or maybe make mockery of their work and that doesn’t make me feel good at all.

Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

When we believe the best of people, we let go of each thing they do that is hurtful to us. And we choose to think things like, ‚I don’t believe they meant to hurt me.‘ ‚Maybe they’re having a bad day or don’t feel well.‘ ‚They probably don’t even realize how they sound.‘

You have to see and smell and feel the circumstances of people to really understand them.

Breathe in deeply to bring your mind home to your body. Then look at, or think of, the person triggering this emotion: With mindfulness, you can see that she is unhappy, that she is suffering. You can see her wrong perceptions. You can see that she is not beautiful when she says things that are unkind.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

It’s no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.

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

It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that there are people who can’t or won’t see what Black Lives Matter is trying to accomplish.

If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.