The thing that I fear discriminating against is humor and truth.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

For me, the way I stay consistent is through stand-up comedy.

Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.

My comedy is different every time I do it. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

Knowledge is true opinion.

Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.

If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?

It’s a funny thing that when a man hasn’t anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.

There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose.

Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We’ll break out of it. It takes time.

Racial prejudice, anti-Semitism, or hatred of anyone with different beliefs has no place in the human mind or heart.

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.

It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.

As I said last week in the wake of the grand jury decision, I think Ferguson laid bare a problem that is not unique to St. Louis or that area, and is not unique to our time, and that is a simmering distrust that exists between too many police departments and too many communities of color.

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

When I die, I’m leaving my body to science fiction.

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

A man’s only as old as the woman he feels.

Realists do not fear the results of their study.

In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute – a white skin.

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.

I like quips. I like whiffs of cynicism and I think they can be witty. But I don’t really know where wittiness is constructive.

I just want my family to be safe. Because I am sometimes polarizing, I fear for their safety.

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

If you spend your life competing with business men, what do you have? A bank account and ulcers!

Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it.

Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.

No man goes before his time – unless the boss leaves early.

At first, I was scared to show fear because you can never be sure how people will perceive you. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Now I’ll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever.

An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.

When I was a kid, I never did funny things to get attention. I was never a funny person. I was never, like, ‚Oh, wow. I could say this some day on stage.‘

I know some of the best Dolly Parton jokes. I made ‚em up myself.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.

If at first you don’t succeed… so much for skydiving.

Silence is the mother of truth.

I have been a professor, and I have been a policymaker, and as a professor, you think in terms of truth or absolutes.

If we weren’t all crazy, we’d just go insane.

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.

People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.

It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.

God and I have a great relationship, but we both see other people.

It doesn’t matter what temperature the room is, it’s always room temperature.

Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors.

The thing about the truth is, not a lot of people can handle it.

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

You know those things that you throw the twigs into and it spits them out? That’s what I do. The branches are like life, and I throw them into my head and some of it comes out as humor.

God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it’s so much fun.