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.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

I was also a junior and I know how you learn from seniors, that’s how you follow. Speeches don’t work.

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

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.

When we’re looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, is able to bend and, most of all, embraces us for our strengths and struggles.

Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

When you have a conflict, that means that there are truths that have to be addressed on each side of the conflict. And when you have a conflict, then it’s an educational process to try to resolve the conflict. And to resolve that, you have to get people on both sides of the conflict involved so that they can dialogue.

‚Suffering should not make us bitter people,‘ my mother once said, ‚it should make us better comforters.‘ Young people need to hear this from those who have walked before them, because someday they’ll be walking those same steps, but there may not be anyone following behind.

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

I could talk all day, T stands for talking, T stands for tender, T stands for things that don’t even rhyme with T.

When I look at public opinion, I’m not far out of the mainstream. I’m in it, in many respects. In some respects, public opinion goes beyond anything I’ve ever said.

If one by one we counted people out For the least sin, it wouldn’t take us long To get so we had no one left to live with. For to be social is to be forgiving.

I grew up cursing a lot. It felt natural. My parents told me to stop.

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

I always keep my guard up with guys and I guess that can get in the way sometimes. I can make them go through hell.

Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness.

Put it this way: If I asked, ‚How’s business?‘ and you say, ‚Boomin‘ or ‚Amazing,‘ I already know the answer.

Never say no when a client asks for something, even if it is the moon. You can always try, and anyhow there is plenty of time afterwards to explain that it was not possible.

When the players go home, I can’t tell them what to do, so you need to create an atmosphere of trust. I don’t want to think, ‚What are they doing now? Do I need to call them?‘

Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere.

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.

If you don’t like what someone has to say, argue with them.

Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.

True politeness consists in being easy one’s self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.

Both times I was in India, I could not get people to listen to each other. I had to literally tell people to listen to each other and tell them that they can’t get creative and find alternate solutions if they don’t listen to each other. There’s a lot of arguing and justifying.

They need help, and we have helped, and we are here to help. And we are helping, and we’re going to continue to help.

I think ‚Dirty Harry‘ was probably sensitive toward the victims of violent crime.

Silence speaks so much louder than screaming tantrums. Never give anyone an excuse to say that you’re crazy.

I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.

Proselytism is solemn nonsense; it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.

War is what happens when language fails.

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

I don’t know about you, but most of my exchanges with cashiers are not that meaningful.

I think if you follow anyone home, whether they live in Houston or London, and you sit at their dinner table and talk to them about their mother who has cancer or their child who is struggling in school, and their fears about watching their lives go by, I think we’re all the same.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

Love other human beings as you would love yourself.

He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.

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.

If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.

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.

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.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

Technology is unlocking the innate compassion we have for our fellow human beings.

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.

You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.

I’ve had moments when I’ve thought about somebody, picked up the phone to call them and they are on the line already, and I think that maybe there’s some vibration, some connection.

Breathe in deeply to bring your mind home to your body. Then look at, or think of, the person triggering this emotion: With mindfulness, you can see that she is unhappy, that she is suffering. You can see her wrong perceptions. You can see that she is not beautiful when she says things that are unkind.

I don’t join the New Atheists. So, for example, I wouldn’t have the arrogance to lecture some mother who hopes to see her dying child in Heaven – that’s none of my business, ultimately. I won’t lecture her on the philosophy of science.

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

It is not, of course, complete yet – but some sentences were understood this afternoon… I feel that I have at last struck the solution of a great problem – and the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid onto houses just like water or gas – and friends converse with each other without leaving home.

Talking isn’t doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.