If we spent half an hour every day in silent immobility, I am convinced that we should conduct all our affairs, personal, national, and international, far more sanely than we do at present.

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

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

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

An Honest politician will not be tolerated by a democracy unless he is very stupid ... because only a very stupid man can honestly share the prejudices of more than half the nation.

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.

We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice, but seldom preach.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case.

People deserve their leaders.

A man can build a home but it needs a woman to run a home.

Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.

The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher.

I'm not good at watching stuff that I'm in at all. I should stop. I shouldn't watch something for the first time with a room full of people at Sundance. It's not a good idea.

Don't settle! Embrace a dream--and keep dreaming. Don't be a bystander. Take it personally.

I think it's all lovely hallucination but I love it sorta.

Careers can disappear just as quickly as they're made, so I'm in no hurry.

I'm the most recognized and loved man that ever lived cuz there weren't no satellites when Jesus and Moses were around, so people far away in the villages didn't know about them.

There are no hierarchies in nature other than those imposed by hierarchical modes of human thought, but rather differences merely in function between and within living things.