If I’m in a political argument, I think I can, with reasonable accuracy and without boasting, put the other person’s side of the case at least as well as they could. One has to be able to say that in any well-conducted argument.

I’m actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions that are unpopular.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

At Facebook, we build tools to help people connect with the people they want and share what they want, and by doing this we are extending people’s capacity to build and maintain relationships.

I’m sure most parents read to their children to explain what certain things mean. So books are a good way to convey a message to anybody. Everybody reads.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don’t regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‚If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?‘ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‚If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?‘

Journalism largely consists of saying ‚Lord Jones is Dead‘ to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.

A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.

When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.

I feel like I write so that people can think of it as theirs. If my song is exactly about your life right now, then it is – I don’t even want to say that it’s mine, because it’s yours.

We can’t just choose to tell some facts and not others because we don’t want to upset people. We have to tell it like it is.

When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out.

He that speaks much, is much mistaken.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.

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.

All our words from loose using have lost their edge.

He who talks more is sooner exhausted.

When I look at public opinion, I’m not far out of the mainstream. I’m in it, in many respects. In some respects, public opinion goes beyond anything I’ve ever said.

The best way to resolve any problem in the human world is for all sides to sit down and talk.

Both times I was in India, I could not get people to listen to each other. I had to literally tell people to listen to each other and tell them that they can’t get creative and find alternate solutions if they don’t listen to each other. There’s a lot of arguing and justifying.

I don’t like people going behind my back.

The capability of negotiating… is something that means you not only have to understand fully what you believe and what your national interests are but in order to be a really good negotiator, you have to try to figure out what the other person on the other side of the table has in mind.

A yawn is a silent shout.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

A man will speedily sit down and sympathize with a friend’s griefs, but if he sees him honored and esteemed, he is apt to regard him as a rival and does not so readily rejoice with him. This ought not to be; without effort, we ought to be happy in our brother’s happiness.

Debates, I hate.

The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve.

I didn’t just invent saying offensive things.

Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is ‚elephant‘.

We want everybody to act like adults, quit playing games, realize that it’s not just my way or the highway.

If you’re a politician, you might want to learn the Buddhist way of negotiation. Restoring communication and bringing back reconciliation is clear and concrete in Buddhism.

I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to.

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

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.

Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

The kids never listen to you, especially the youngest ones.

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.

People have me pinned as a shark or a predator in some way, and in no way am I that. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. I want to defend people. I want to help people.

I like learning more about people; I like to talk to people.

To be clear: we have fights and problems like any other couple.

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

I meet people overseas that know five languages – that the only language I’m comfortable in is English.

I’m blessed to have such a tight-knit family that we can talk about anything. Whether we talk frequently or not, since we’re on separate ends of the country, there are a lot of moving parts, and we always stay tight and find that center ground that keeps us together.

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.

I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn’t going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I’ve ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn’t want to do whatever he did. So after that, I switched to Communications.

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.

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.

I know what I do for my team and what my teammates expect of me on both ends of the floor.

Such a chimerical idea as telegraphing vocal sounds would indeed, to most minds, seem scarcely feasible enough to spend time in working over. I believe, however, that it is feasible and that I have got the cue to the solution of the problem.

I don’t want to tell President Obama how to make a speech. He’s a much better speech maker than I am. But I think always to tell the truth in a sometimes blatant way, even though it might be temporarily unpopular, is the best approach.

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