There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.

If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what’s going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

The more people I reach, the more people there are that have opinions about me. Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

I have all the emotions that everyone has; it just appears that I don’t.

We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.

When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.

As the father of eight children, I’m quite convinced that each individual arrives here with their own unique personality. We are intended here from an invisible held of infinite potentiality. That which has no form, has no boundaries – it’s the I that’s in the ever-changing body.

Day by day we should weigh what we have granted to the spirit of the world against what we have denied to the spirit of Jesus, in thought and especially in deed.

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

You have to see and smell and feel the circumstances of people to really understand them.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

My father wasn’t around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, ‚Why me? Why don’t I have a father? Why isn’t he around? Why did he leave my mother?‘ But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, ‚I don’t know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?‘

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

When I was two, a dragonfly flew near me. A man knocked it to the ground and trod on it. I remember crying because I’d caused the dragonfly to be killed.

Educate the masses, elevate their standard of intelligence, and you will certainly have a successful nation.

I read Plato’s ‚Republic.‘ I read it through about five times until I could actually understand it.

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.

I’m not a god – I do bad things.

I’ve been a lot more into Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, which was a bit complicated for me to understand the language of each social media, because they all talk in different ways. It’s a nice way for me to tell people I appreciate them, which I forget to do sometimes.

Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.

I’m honest enough to say I don’t know everything. You know, I don’t. I don’t understand all of God. I don’t understand, you know, some kind of why bad things happen.

It’s presumptuous to say you know how somebody feels.

I’m very, very serious – I’m serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others.

In retrospect, I can see I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!

I try to speak plainly so that my constituents who don’t follow the nuances of government like I do, because they’re too busy earning a real living, can understand the issues before me. None of this stuff is brain surgery.

A tear dries quickly when it is shed for troubles of others.

I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.

What’s important for my daughter to know is that… if you are fortunate to have opportunity, it is your duty to make sure other people have those opportunities as well.

I’m grateful for always this moment, the now, no matter what form it takes.

We should take care not to make the intellect our goal; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

We love things we love what they are.

It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow’s viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences.

Democracy is a daring concept – a hope that we’ll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government. It is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local knowledge of the electorate sums together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people.

I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.

We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.

There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.

We need to, you know, restore people. We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, – superfluous things that wear our togas theadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.

When I grew up, the Devil was a reason why I had a headache or the Devil was the reason I got mad today. We always blamed the Devil. I think today when I say the Enemy, I like to make it broader. Sometimes the Enemy can be our own thoughts.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

I more fear what is within me than what comes from without.

I want everybody to understand that I am an American Negro first before I am a member of any political party.

You know that your happiness and suffering depend on the happiness and suffering of others. That insight helps you not to do wrong things that will bring suffering to yourself and to other people.

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

Life is precious.

I was a class clown. At 12, I was definitely clowning. I was making all the jokes. But I was smart, so the teachers didn’t know what to do with me.

I put my flaws on front street. So the world accepted my flaws, so I don’t have any flaws.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart, don’t know how to laugh either.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

Sometimes we look back and 10 years from now we think, ‚Boy, those were great old days.‘ Well, you know, we’re living in the good old days.

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.