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

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.

I’ve always wanted male friends that I could be real intimate with and talk about important things with and be as affectionate with that person as I would be with a girl.

Understanding is a two-way street.

Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.

That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity’s small change in general society.

All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, with the exception of the written word: which is its mechanical part.

Teach me to feel another’s woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

You can stroke people with words.

Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.

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

I have an answering machine in my car. It says, I’m home now. But leave a message and I’ll call when I’m out.

It’s very hard for our parents who see us enter a world that they can’t imagine.

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old – and that’s the criterion by which I’ll be selecting my judges.

While physics and mathematics may tell us how the universe began, they are not much use in predicting human behavior because there are far too many equations to solve. I’m no better than anyone else at understanding what makes people tick, particularly women.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

Death and genitals are things that frighten people, and when people are frightened, they develop means of concealment and aggression. It is common sense.

Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

I don’t like talking to celebrities.

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.

If you can’t beat them, arrange to have them beaten.

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

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

When you really don’t like a guy, they’re all over you, and as soon as you act like you like them, they’re no longer interested.

Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

When I got somethin‘ to say, I’ll say it.

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.

You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.

Part of what confuses people in times of upheaval is that you’re getting so many different points of view and directions and so and so, how to do this and do that. And a lot of it is written in a language that honestly most people cannot understand.

When you’re in prison, you want to know that you were thought about.

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.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

I’m just hoping that people understand that Islam is peace and not violence.

I looked the people of Louisiana in the eye and told them exactly what I thought in terms that normal people use.

Certainly I’ll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I’ve gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery.

What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.

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

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.

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

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.

Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself!

If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.

And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.

The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.

Kids who have an understanding of how and why their feelings are what they are are much more likely to talk to us about what’s happening, and they have better skills to work it out.

It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.

When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, ‚Did you sleep good?‘ I said ‚No, I made a few mistakes.‘

If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people’s choices. If I feel good about my body, I don’t go around making fun of other people’s weight or appearance. We’re hard on each other because we’re using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived deficiency.

‚No comment‘ is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.