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

The way people look at me these days – that’s the same way I looked at President Obama before I met him. We tend to forget that people who’ve attained a certain position are human.

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

Two things control men’s nature, instinct and experience.

There is one way to have a short but exciting conversation with me, and that is to move too slow.

I see myself in all the people in the world who are suffering and who are very badly treated and who are often made to feel that they have no place on this Earth.

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.

My wife and I don’t compete. We know each other’s preferences, and we work to provide those for each other. One will take over when the other is faced with something he or she dislikes. That’s what friends do.

I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at.

Passive aggressors who are adept at this will have trained themselves to remain calm, while you get irritated and emotional.

A man’s delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that oral teachers and sign teachers found it difficult to sit down in the same room without quarreling, and there was intolerance upon both sides. To say ‚oral method‘ to a sign teacher was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, and to say ‚sign language‘ to an oralist aroused the deepest resentment.

I’m very sensitive. I remember, as a kid at school, if someone in the classroom was sad or angry, it could have a great impact on me.

When people get married young, you don’t really understand the true definition of marriage.

It may happen sometimes that a long debate becomes the cause of a longer friendship. Commonly, those who dispute with one another at last agree.

But I’m pretty good with collaborative thinking. I work well with other people.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It’s a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

I certainly would not like to end up in a tie-up with Ms. Rousey.

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you’re advancing. If you don’t you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.

We have practiced diplomacy since the very beginning of the nation. Sometimes it has not worked, and we’ve had to go to war. I always believe you should try to find peace and reconciliation before conflict. That has been the approach I’ve taken.

Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something.

When we talk about understanding, surely it takes place only when the mind listens completely – the mind being your heart, your nerves, your ears – when you give your whole attention to it.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

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

We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

I wish every American had an opportunity to sit down, to go to a base, to meet with families, to meet with service members, to sit down with our veterans – because we would think differently about our challenges as individuals.

He that speaks much, is much mistaken.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

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.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

When I was two, a dragonfly flew near me. A man knocked it to the ground and trod on it. I remember crying because I’d caused the dragonfly to be killed.

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

Never speak to an invalid from behind, nor from the door, nor from any distance from him, nor when he is doing anything. The official politeness of servants in these things is so grateful to invalids, that many prefer, without knowing why, having none but servants about them.

I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.

I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it’s a better way of telling the stories.

To compromise simply means that you go a tiny bit below what you know is right.

A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.

I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me ‚understand‘ something, it would be clear to all the other people in the country.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

I was never ignorant, as far as being experienced in classrooms and learning about different subjects and actually soaking it up, so I checked into college for a little bit. I took classes at a community college in West L.A. I took psychology, English, and philosophy.

Each day we understand better what the Indians say, and they us, so that very often we are intelligible to each other.

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

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

Law is always better than war.

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

A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.

I sent one e-mail in my life. I sent it to Jeff Raikes at Microsoft, and it ended up in court in Minneapolis, so I am one for one.

We have an obligation to help people that cannot help themselves. The mentally retarded, the physically retarded, et cetera.

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.

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have.

The only difference between the sane and the insane is that the sane have the power to lock up the insane.

Most men are within a finger’s breadth of being mad.

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

The best leaders are readers of people. They have the intuitive ability to understand others by discerning how they feel and recognizing what they sense.

Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job, I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: ‚Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don’t you realize that?‘ They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn’t want to enter their minds.

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

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.

The less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.