Lying is not only saying what isn’t true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler.

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.

I think what’s important is for us to decipher what is honest and what is dishonest and be accepting of those things and not operating from fear.

To be social is to be forgiving.

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

My name can’t be that tough to pronounce!

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

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.

I love that I can tell the truth and have people laugh at it.

How to drive a guy crazy: send him a telegram and on the top put ‚page 2.‘

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 think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

Many people aren’t rich because they’re liars.

Foreign policy is like human relations, only people know less about each other.

The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong.

Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

When you really listen to another person from their point of view, and reflect back to them that understanding, it’s like giving them emotional oxygen.

You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth.

The lawyer’s truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.

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.

I don’t mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.

What makes you a SEAL, what makes you a SEAL is being a good tactician on the battle field, understanding how to shoot, move, and communicate, knowing small unit maneuver warfare. That’s what makes a good SEAL, and so that is the course of instruction that I taught, was getting SEAL platoons ready for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.

The influence of a mother upon the lives of her children cannot be measured. They know and absorb her example and attitudes when it comes to questions of honesty, temperance, kindness, and industry.

It seems to me that terrestrial beings, as they become more autonomous, psychologically richer, shut themselves up in a way against one another, and at the same time gradually become strangers to the cosmic environment and currents, impenetrable to one another, and incapable of exteriorizing themselves.

Few men would dare to read their own autobiography if all their deeds were recorded in it; few can look back upon their entire career without a blush.

Throughout my career, I fed off the fuel of people not being able to understand me.

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.

Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

In whatever adulation you get, there’s truth and there’s not truth. And wherever they dog you, and they say it was horrible – there’s truth and there’s not truth. It’s human nature to like to read the adulation more.

Nobody’s ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

There are a lot of self-imposed restrictions by people who somehow believe they have to fall in with a certain military cant. There was always a sense that we had to put things into words that would touch our troops‘ hearts, not just their heads.

It’s human nature to not say everything that’s on your mind at the time you think it. Because we fear saying something that people will laugh at, people will think is dumb. We’re afraid of being embarrassed.

Many people listen to what I have to say and I appear a lot in media, so therefore I influence a lot of people and therefore I have a bigger responsibility because I have a bigger platform.

Never find fault with the absent.

Biographies, as generally written, are not only misleading but false… In most instances, they commemorate a lie and cheat posterity out of the truth.

A speech idiosyncrasy, in the same way as an air quote, is really justifiable only if it’s employed very sparingly and if the user consciously intends to be using it.

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

He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

Back, you know, a few generations ago, people didn’t have a way to share information and express their opinions efficiently to a lot of people. But now they do. Right now, with social networks and other tools on the Internet, all of these 500 million people have a way to say what they’re thinking and have their voice be heard.

People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools.

When in doubt tell the truth.

The truth doesn’t hurt unless it ought to.

In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth – often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.

Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.

When I was young, an eccentric uncle decided to teach me how to lie. Not, he explained, because he wanted me to lie, but because he thought I should know how it’s done so I would recognise when I was being lied to.

Every day I try to be in communication with the universe in an unconscious way.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

But does that mean that war and violence are inevitable? I would argue not because we have also evolved this amazingly sophisticated intellect, and we are capable of controlling our innate behavior a lot of the time.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

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.

Everyone knows nowadays that people ‚have complexes‘. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.