If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

Me is a common sense man. That mean when me explain things, me explain it in a very simple way; that mean if I explain it to a baby, the baby will understand too, you know.

If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.

Understanding is a two-way street.

If everything isn’t black and white, I say, ‚Why the hell not?‘

A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.

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

The narrow bandwidth of TV has made us think that we are stupider than we are.

Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.

I remember the first time I heard a teenager say ‚LOL.‘ Just what? But it means ‚laugh.‘ Why don’t you just laugh? What are you doing?

Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards – the things we live by and teach our children – are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.

You can only have one aim per debate.

Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner’s inquest.

We don’t need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful.

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.

To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one’s experiences in common.

I see the world in black and white, and I don’t like compromising.

It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.

Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

If you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

Whenever a fellow tells me he’s bipartisan, I know he’s going to vote against me.

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.

Of course you can’t ‚trust‘ what people tell you on the web anymore than you can ‚trust‘ what people tell you on megaphones, postcards or in restaurants. Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has evolved to do.

He had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favor of two.

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.

Some men do think I’m a psycho bunny-boiler.

I have a hard time figuring out what kind of box to put me in, too, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on around me or why. But I need to stay outside of boxes because then I can look at what’s inside of them without being part of them.

Most people have no idea what something would sound like if it wasn’t an MP3.

To add value to others, one must first value others.

When you’re doing a film and the majority of the film is cast black, for me, it’s most important to get people to view those movies as just movies, as just good movies. At the end of the day, regardless of the color of the cast, we’re all doing the same thing in this business: trying to make a good film.

We do not see people as they are, but as they appear to us. And these appearances are usually misleading.

The difficulty with this conversation is that it’s very different from most of the ones I’ve had of late. Which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

I, personally, think there is a really danger of taking food too seriously. Food should be part of the bigger picture.

The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.

There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.

I don’t want to get into it, but if you know someone, it doesn’t mean you agree with everything they say or they do.

If you ever go to a music session, you’ll notice that the musicians can sit down and start playing right away, and everyone knows what to do. Of course they’re reading it, but the conductor can tweak little things, and you can take that back to directing motion pictures.

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.

Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself.

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.

I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

‚Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.

I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.