B.J. Penn Quotes

Passion is the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason.

If thou rise with an Appetite, thou art sure never to sit down without one.

Poker has the feeling of a sport, but you don't have to do push-ups.

We are apt to love praise, but not deserve it. But if we would deserve it, we must love virtue more than that.

To have religion upon authority, and not upon conviction, is like a finger-watch, to be set forwards or backwards, as he pleases that has it in keeping.

Sense shines with double lustre when set in humility.

Dislike what deserves it, but never hate: for that is of the nature of malice; which is almost ever to persons, not things, and is one of the blackest qualities sin begets in the soul.

If thou thinkest twice before thou speakest once, thou wilt speak twice the better for it.

The skills that we have are the actual magic skills - not the performing skills. We have to separate those. But the actual skills that make the tricks work, we don't get to use again.

There is a truth and beauty in rhetoric; but it oftener serves ill turns than good ones.

For we put the power in the people.

Teller and I worked Renaissance Festivals and street performing - actually more real, no kidding around, Philadelphia street performing than we did Renaissance Festivals.

Do what good thou canst unknown, and be not vain of what ought rather to be felt than seen.

The only place we were really told to tone it down - where other people would use the word censorship, but I wouldn't - was when we did MTV right after the Beavis and Butt-head thing.

Less judgment than wit is more sail than ballast.

Love and respect all people. Hate and destroy all faith.

Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.

I have no evidence that libertarianism leads to a better life. I just think it is morally right.

I don't expect you'll hear me writing any poems to the greater glory of Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

For the truth is a terrible thing.

I never wanted to be a magician. I never wanted to be a comedian. I never wanted to be onstage.

I intend to do the Penn & Teller show until they pry my cheesy magic wand from my cold dead fingers.

More and more Emerson recedes grandly into history, as the future he predicted becomes a past.

It is a severe rebuke upon us, that God makes us so many allowances, and we make so few to our neighbour.

What man in his right mind would conspire his own hurt? Men are beside themselves when they transgress against their convictions.

I'm a big fan of huge populations of people, so you'd think with 300 million people in the country, you don't even have to please 1% to be phenomenally successful.

We knew that we were kind of odd and creeps, and we wanted to do odd, creepy stuff for people who wanted to see that.

If thou wouldst conquer thy weakness, thou must never gratify it. No man is compelled to evil: his consent only makes it his. It is no sin to be tempted, but to be overcome.

We aren't people who believe that just because we're performers our opinions on everything need to be known.

Choose a friend as thou dost a wife, till death separate you.

[I]t is impossible that any people of government should ever prosper, where men render not unto God, that which is God's, as well as to Caesar, that which is Caesar's.

Every day, TV, newspapers, and the Internet bombard us with a message that we're destroying the earth. Ice caps are melting, rivers are dying, polar bears are drowning, and trees are doing something.

We are too apt to love praise, but not to deserve it.

Venezuela and its revolution will endure under the proven leadership of Vice President Maduro.

That's not easy to find in a corporate world, somebody who cares about music.

Technology was once a substitute for dealing with people, but today it is at the heart of sociability.

Oh, I'm a big-mouth. I said a lot of things.

To hazard much to get much has more of avarice than wisdom.

Over the years I must have spent thousands of hours silently brushing on the liquid coatings, preparing each sheet in anticipation of reaching the perfect print.

A beautiful print is a thing in itself, not just a halfway house on the way to the page.

Haste makes work which caution prevents.

Find your spirit, and no challenge will keep you from achieving your goals.

To be a man's own fool is bad enough, but the vain man is everybody's.

Yeah, I had a tremendous time shooting in Nebraska. I like that state a lot, all over it.

Anything less than full justice is cruelty.

Religion is nothing else but love of God and man.

Is it reasonable to take it ill, that anybody desires of us that which is their own? All we have is the Almighty's; and shall not God have his own when he calls for it?

Content not thyself that thou art virtuous in the general; for one link being wanting, the chain is defective.

I love acting, truly my favorite people are actors.

Every stroke our fury strikes is sure to hit ourselves at last.