One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.

I spend a lot of time just, you know, with my girlfriend and my dog. And I mean, we don’t have a lot of furniture in our house, so it’s really simple. And we’re trying to build products for everyone in the world, right. And you don’t want to get isolated to do that.

I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.

We’re not trying to make you less of a man. We just want you to love us as deeply and as wholesomely and as fully as we love you.

The question of sexual dominance can exist only in the nightmare of that soul which has armed itself, totally, against the possibility of the changing motion of conquest and surrender, which is love.

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.

I gave my archive to Emory University because there’s a really dear friend who teaches there, Rudolph Byrd, and he’s the editor.

My mom and I have always been really close. She’s always been the friend that was always there. There were times when, in middle school and junior high, I didn’t have a lot of friends. But my mom was always my friend. Always.

I’ve never had a divorce, but I’ve seen so many of my friends, my sister, my family go through that stuff, so I try to write for the people that can’t write about it. I take on their sorrow, so I’m able to kind of express it, or their joy.

If you burn your neighbors house down, it doesn’t make your house look any better.

The African is my brother but he is my younger brother by several centuries.

We’re close friends – the American people, the Israeli people, our governments. There’s absolutely no daylight – none – between us and the Israelis on the question of Israel’s security.

I think I have a certain respect for people, you know. And I guess a lot of times I expect that respect to go both ways.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

Those who have a true understanding of America know that we have no desire for territorial expansion, for economic or other domination of other peoples. Such purposes are repugnant to our ideals of human freedom.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

Happiness is a hard master, particularly other people’s happiness.

I think any man who lets a woman pick what he should wear… I mean, you gotta draw the line somewhere as a man. I see these guys, ‚My wife told me to wear this!‘ And I just shake my head.

To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.

Mediocre theoretical physicists make no progress. They spend all their time understanding other people’s progress.

I do believe that in order to be a successful negotiator that as a diplomat, you have to be able to put yourself into the other person’s shoes. Unless you can understand what is motivating them, you are never going to be able to figure out how to solve a particular problem.

I do have a lot of gays in my family now, but some will never come out.

Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.

I’ve known and continue to know every one of these major world leaders by their first names, and I have access to them.

But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.

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.

There’s always going to be people who don’t understand or accept the united science, and I will just ignore them, as I’m only acting and communicating on the science.

It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.

People say that about me, that I apparently buy houses near every boy I like – that’s a thing that I apparently do. If I like you I will apparently buy up the real-estate market just to freak you out so you leave me.

In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties.

If you are not being bullied all I would say – cause I like to talk about the other side of it as well – is you know, be someone that nurtures, and if there’s someone in your class that maybe doesn’t have a lot of friends, be the person that sits with them in the cafeteria sometimes; be the bigger person.

For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.

There’s nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It’s a thing no married man knows anything about.

A pessimist? That’s a person who has been intimately acquainted with an optimist.

People look at the same passage, and one person will say this is the best thing he’s ever read, and another person will say it’s absolutely idiotic. I mean, there’s no way to reconcile those two things. You just have to forget the whole business of what people are saying.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

My friends are my estate.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.

I’ve had no contact with my daughter for years. That’s her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don’t want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.

So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you.

Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy.

The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.

Like associates with like.

Time was when they that feared the Lord spake often to one another; I am afraid that now they more often speak one against another.

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

If I love you, I show you I love you every day. Little things, big things.

I love making new friends and I respect people for a lot of different reasons.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

If you have an enemy, then learn and know your enemy, don’t just be mad at him or her.

Anyone who is practicing understanding and compassion can exemplify true power. Anyone can be a Buddha.

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.

Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

We’re in very bad trouble if we don’t understand the planet we’re trying to save.

Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.

You bring children into the world. You love them with heart and soul.

Test a servant while in the discharge of his duty, a relative in difficulty, a friend in adversity, and a wife in misfortune.

If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things.

Marriage is the most natural state of man, and… the state in which you will find solid happiness.