Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards – the things we live by and teach our children – are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.

Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.

I guess every single word I’ve ever said is going to be dissected now.

If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else.

A letter does not blush.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

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.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

In honorable dealing you should consider what you intended, not what you said or thought.

Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.

The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.

I have an answering machine in my car. It says, I’m home now. But leave a message and I’ll call when I’m out.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

Ever since Newton, we’ve done science by taking things apart to see how they work. What the computer enables us to do is to put things together to see how they work: we’re now synthesized rather than analysed. I find one of the most enthralling aspects of computers is limitless communication.

Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.

The truth is that the vast majority of Americans are good, fair, and just, and they want their country to reflect those ideals.

I write all of my own speeches.

The heart is forever inexperienced.

I think your values are always influenced by your family and your community.

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

Convictions, in the end, they can be dangerous, but a world without them is just kind of an awful kind of gray, amorphous mass.

My first phone was two tin cans tied together with string, and it worked pretty good.

Humans cannot avoid trying to influence others. Everything we say or do is examined and interpreted by others for clues as to our intentions.

We have to rediscover the eternal values and then live them out.

I particularly like Twitter, because it’s short and can be very funny and informative. It’s a little bit like having your own radio program.

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.

There are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated.

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

The PC has improved the world in just about every area you can think of. Amazing developments in communications, collaboration and efficiencies. New kinds of entertainment and social media. Access to information and the ability to give a voice people who would never have been heard.

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

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.

It’s impossible to live a life totally free of feelings. God created all of us to be emotional creatures, and feelings are a big part of our lives.

There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

I don’t have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – ‚tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

The fact is, when men carry the same ideals in their hearts, nothing can isolate them – neither prison walls nor the sod of cemeteries. For a single memory, a single spirit, a single idea, a single conscience, a single dignity will sustain them all.

It’s not possible to stop love.

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

Feelings are more dangerous than ideas, because they aren’t susceptible to rational evaluation. They grow quietly, spreading underground, and erupt suddenly, all over the place.

Journalism makes you think fast. You have to speak to people in all walks of life. Especially local journalism.

If Jesus were here today, he wouldn’t be riding around on a donkey. He’d be taking a plane, he’d be using the media.

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

Just talk to me as a father – not what the Constitution says. What do you feel?

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

To a guy like me, a laugh is full of information.

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.

Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.

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

Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.

Part of your heritage in this society is the opportunity to become financially independent.

Part of the American dream is to live long and die young. Only those Americans who are willing to die for their country are fit to live.

To me, it’s OK to have differences. But we don’t have to be mad about it. You know? And I think that’s where sometimes we get so passionate that we – you know, it turns into anger.

Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

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.

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.

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