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.

It’s a tragedy, in a way, that Americans are brought up to think that they cannot feel for other people and other beings just because they are different. They think they’re different. It’s very limiting.

We need to, you know, restore people. 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.

Often, little situations trigger enormous reactions. Be there, present for it. Your partner will find it easier to see it in you, and you will find it easier to see it in them.

I try to not focus on what people expect from me.

There’s just some magic in truth and honesty and openness.

He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.

I always have been an activist for things that were just authentically a part of my life, that I felt connected to.

Occasionally I’ve seen children become heavy-handed and insensitive when dealing with their aging parents, and it only caused resentment and hard feelings.

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

I feel like I have a job to do, like I constantly have to reinvent myself. The more I up the ante for myself, the better it is in the long run. I try to interact with my fans as much as possible. It’s good that the person I’m being onstage isn’t really an act. It’s really me.

A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

Laughter is America’s most important export.

We have observed that, in society and the world in which we live, selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.

It’s always wonderful to get to know women, with the mystery and the joy and the depth. If you can make a woman laugh, you’re seeing the most beautiful thing on God’s Earth.

We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal’s ‚Pensees‘ and read, ‚I am the great silent spaces between worlds.‘

I am who I am. That’s why my friends and peers respect and appreciate me. I don’t change or cater my actions to fit my surroundings. I’m myself 24/7. People appreciate that.

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.

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.

I’ve never been one to sit back and go, ‚I’d better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don’t want to lose them.‘

I wish they would only take me as I am.

It’s so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one.

Listen, I think that people want a president who is going to be interested in the things that keep them up at night, the things that are weighing on them, the things that are debilitating and can be addressed.

You pity the fool because you don’t want to beat up a fool! You know, pity is between sorry and mercy. See, if you pity him, you know, you won’t have to beat him up. So that’s why I say fools, you gotta give another chance because they don’t know no better. That’s why I pity them!

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

We’re a blip in the existence of the universe, and we’re constantly trying to pull each other down. Not doing things to help each other.

A disagreement or incident involving someone who’s not that important to you, like a guy who cut you off in traffic or a rude cashier, is something that should roll off your shoulders. Save the effort for resolving conflicts with the people you cherish.

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.

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’s not a slam at you when people are rude, it’s a slam at the people they’ve met before.

I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I’m conscious of the mainstream without selling out.

No matter what message you are about to deliver somewhere, whether it is holding out a hand of friendship, or making clear that you disapprove of something, is the fact that the person sitting across the table is a human being, so the goal is to always establish common ground.

What do you regard as most humane? To spare someone shame.

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.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

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

It’s hard for me to grasp the concept of somebody being nervous when I’m talking to them.

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

A tear dries quickly when it is shed for troubles of others.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets.

I feel like if you’re a really good human being, you can try to find something beautiful in every single person, no matter what.

Logically, harmony must come from the heart… Harmony very much based on trust. As soon as use force, creates fear. Fear and trust cannot go together.

What people see on court is another side of me; it’s not me.

I’m not frightened of appearing vulnerable.

An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.

I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn’t touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.

It’s not about changing people; it’s sometimes about changing a situation. How can we build an even better situation for them?

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.

Stay humble and be concerned for the less fortunate.

I love that I can talk to my fans through Twitter, to cut out the middle man. Because I’ve done interviews where my words have gotten twisted, so it’s nice to be able to have things coming straight from me.

Most of the stuff I do on the show comes out of me just trying to make my friends laugh.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

A good laugh is sunshine in the house.

Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.