When I look at public opinion, I’m not far out of the mainstream. I’m in it, in many respects. In some respects, public opinion goes beyond anything I’ve ever said.

Governments don’t control people like they used to.

When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out.

Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich.

I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.

I don’t know about you, but most of my exchanges with cashiers are not that meaningful.

Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

We have language and they do not. Chimps communicate by embracing, patting, looking – all these things. And they have lots of sounds. But they cannot sit and discuss. They cannot teach about things that are not present, as far as we know.

Never be so brief as to become obscure.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

People don’t realise how difficult it is to work with people day in and day out that know absolutely nothing.

A lot of people are bored of all the political correctness.

No good is ever done to society by the pictorial representation of its diseases.

I’ve tried different things through the years to get some play on mainstream. I’ll try to tailor-make it.

I didn’t just invent saying offensive things.

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have.

When you have nothing important or interesting to say, don’t let anyone persuade you to say it.

There is so much that must be done in a civilized barbarism like war.

I have already demonstrated, by crucial tests, the practicability of signaling by my system from one to any other point of the globe, no matter how remote, and I shall soon convert the disbelievers.

The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.

If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk.

Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.

Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same of us.

If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.

I did my utmost to ensure that everyone below me in the chain of command felt comfortable approaching me with concerns, ideas, thoughts, and even disagreements.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

Good writing is like a windowpane.

I meet people overseas that know five languages – that the only language I’m comfortable in is English.

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.

As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what’s happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don’t seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.

At Facebook, we build tools to help people connect with the people they want and share what they want, and by doing this we are extending people’s capacity to build and maintain relationships.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

Each day we understand better what the Indians say, and they us, so that very often we are intelligible to each other.

Let your Discourse with Men of Business be Short and Comprehensive.

The very word ‚secrecy‘ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.

Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay.

Politics have no relation to morals.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

In the normal flow of a conversation, our attention is divided. We hear parts of what other people are saying, in order to follow and keep the conversation going. At the same time, we’re planning what we’ll say next, some exciting story of our own.

Before I lost my voice, it was slurred, so only those close to me could understand, but with the computer voice, I found I could give popular lectures. I enjoy communicating science. It is important that the public understands basic science, if they are not to leave vital decisions to others.

Words may show a man’s wit but actions his meaning.

No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated.

You pick up some fans and a handful of haters along the way.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

Regardless of what society says, we can’t go on much longer in the sea of immorality without judgment coming.

You’ve got to work things out in the cloakroom, and when you’ve got them worked out, you can debate a little before you vote.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

In my divorce, I stood up and said to my ex-wife, ‚Hey, I messed up. This had nothing to do with you. I didn’t understand what marriage was. I cheated. I was wrong. We couldn’t fix it; it got worse. I stepped away because I didn’t want it to get any worse. You’re the mother of my kids – I don’t want to hate you.‘

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he’d say, ‚Boss, we’ve got this, and that, and the other thing.‘ And I’d look at him and I’d say, ‚Good.‘

Occasionally I’ve seen children become heavy-handed and insensitive when dealing with their aging parents, and it only caused resentment and hard feelings.

In oratory the will must predominate.

The public doesn’t mind people living together without being married, providing they don’t overdo it.

If you can talk, you can write.

I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.

Being politically correct means saying what’s polite rather than what’s accurate. I like to be accurate.

I was also a junior and I know how you learn from seniors, that’s how you follow. Speeches don’t work.