Ben Stein famous quotes

It's amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.
-- Ben Stein

#Inspirational #Success #Determination

I think, there are many people who are much smarter than I am, and many, many, many who are much harder-working than I am, but in terms of the range of my activities, they're unique.
-- Ben Stein

#Unique #Thinking #People

The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.
-- Ben Stein

#Inspirational #Motivational #Success

I've never liked the idea of just having an office in a college somewhere and teaching classes and going to the library and doing research all day. I've never wanted that. The glamorous life is the life that appeals to me.
-- Ben Stein

#Teaching #College #Ideas

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.
-- Ben Stein

#Faith #Believe #Knowing

I think a snob would be a person who thinks he is entitled; he has good things in his life and is entitled to them.
-- Ben Stein

#Thinking #Would Be #Good Things

Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all success, all achievement in real life grows.
-- Ben Stein

#Life #Motivational #Relationship

I feel as if I'm in on a pass and am damn lucky to have whatever I have. It could all be taken away in a second.
-- Ben Stein

#Taken #Lucky #Feels

You must take the first step. The first steps will take some effort, maybe pain. But after that, everything that has to be done is real-life movement.
-- Ben Stein

#Life #Pain #Real

You cannot win if you're not at the table. You have to be where the action is.
-- Ben Stein

#Winning #Tables #Action

I am about to vote. I am about to do something that human beings are rarely allowed to do. I am doing something that did not exist until America.
-- Ben Stein

#America #Vote #Humans

Usually I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe in the Bilderbergers as a conspiracy or the Trilateralists. But I am certain that the Communists killed JFK. There is a super great book called 'Legend' by Edward Jay Epstein that makes it all perfectly clear.
-- Ben Stein

#Believe #Book #Legends

The successful people of this world take life as it comes. They just go out and deal with the world as it is.
-- Ben Stein

#Successful #Reality #People

A corporation's responsibility is to the shareholders, not its retirees and employees. Companies are doing everything they can to get rid of pension plans and they will succeed.
-- Ben Stein

#Responsibility #Corporations #Succeed

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... But not everyone must prove they are a citizen.
-- Ben Stein

#Government #Hypocrisy #Citizens

You can do what you think you can do and you cannot do what you think you cannot
-- Ben Stein

#Thinking #Belief

I do all of the grocery shopping in my little family. I buy cheese, of many different kinds, sliced packaged meats and poultry, bagels, immense quantities of eggs, pre-made fried chicken. Milk. Bacon. It is insane how much dairy, deli and bakery stuff I buy.
-- Ben Stein

#Eggs #Shopping #Insane

And now, any of those who refuse, or are unable, to prove they are citizens will receive free insurance paid for by those who are forced to buy insurance because they are citizens.
-- Ben Stein

#Citizens #Prove #Refuse

Science leads you to killing people.
-- Ben Stein

#People #Religion #Killing

What's a good investment? Go home from work early and spend the afternoon throwing a ball around with your son.
-- Ben Stein

#Home #Son #Parenting

Nothing happens by itself... it all will come your way, once you understand that you have to make it come your way, by your own exertions.
-- Ben Stein

#Responsibility #Way #Exertion

I don't believe the most successful people are the ones who got the best grades, got into the best schools, or made the most money.
-- Ben Stein

#Believe #School #Successful

Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over gain, and you will grow stronger until have accomplished a purpose - not the one you began with perhaps, but one you'll be glad to remember.
-- Ben Stein

#Moving On #Time #Failure

Jump into the middle of things, get your hands dirty, fall flat on your face, and then reach for the stars.
-- Ben Stein

#Motivational #Stars #Fall

It's really amazing that in the age of unbelief, as a smart man called it, there isn't even more fraud. After all, with no God, there's no one to ever call you to account, and no accounting at all if you can get away with it.
-- Ben Stein

#Birthday #Smart #Men

The human spirit needs to accomplish, to achieve, to triumph to be happy.
-- Ben Stein

#Happiness #Accomplishment #Inner Peace

I mean it used to be, there was a time … when lynchings of African Americans were not that incredibly rare. Now the lynchings are the police and it's just an outrage.
-- Ben Stein

#Mean #Lynching #African American

Darwinism is still very much alive, utterly dominating biology. Despite the fact that no one has ever been able to prove the creation of a single distinct species by Darwinist means, Darwinism dominates the academy and the media.
-- Ben Stein

#Mean #Media #Alive

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
-- Ben Stein

#Children #Asking #Stranger

My parents, products of the Great Depression, were successful people, but lived in a state of constant fear that my sister and I, and they, would sink into the kind of economic insecurity that their generation knew so well.
-- Ben Stein

#Successful #People #Parent

It's a lot better to hope than not to.
-- Ben Stein

#Hopeful

Neo-Darwinists ask us to believe in things not seen. We're not supposed to have an established religion in America, but we do, and it's called Darwinism .
-- Ben Stein

#Believe #America #Darwinism

No one will do it for you.
-- Ben Stein

I don't like the sound of all the lists he's making.
-- Ben Stein

#Sound #Lists

Every morning, I get up, get out of bed, and get on my knees and thank God for waking up in America ... (She is) the light of the world ... A nation of heroes ... The real stars are wearing body armor on top of their battle dress uniforms in 130 degree heat and they do not have stunt doubles to come in for them when the going gets rough and the bullets and the shrapnel start flying. They are the real stars, fighting terrorism and trying to free a nation.
-- Ben Stein

#Morning #Stars #Military

If there is no God, why bother to tell the truth? Why not steal?
-- Ben Stein

#Why Not #Telling The Truth #Stealing

I am back in LA now. And I keep thinking back to my time in New York after the bombings.... I was crying so much I could not see, and the other diners joined in, and I thought, What do you do with such atheistic evil?
-- Ben Stein

#New York #Thinking #Evil

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it sis my duty ... This is my highest and best use as a human.
-- Ben Stein

#Life #Helping Others #Use

Humans are alive, therefore life must be complex.
-- Ben Stein

#Alive #Humans

Yes, [I spent] two long years, traveling all over the United States, all over Europe, interviewing many, many, many people who had been thrown out of their academic jobs because they taught that there was a possibility of life coming from something other than Darwinism, who thought that possibly random selection and mutations didn't account for the universe, didn't account for gravity, didn't account for why nobody had ever seen an individual species evolve -- no one's ever seen an individual species evolve!
-- Ben Stein

#Jobs #Years #Europe

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period.
-- Ben Stein

#Christian #Believe #Tired

[I did] Some [reading to prep for Expelled]. I read one book cover to cover, From Darwin to Hitler , and that was a very interesting book--one of these rare books I wish had been even longer. It's about how Darwin 's theory--supposedly concocted by this mild-mannered saintly man, with a flowing white beard like Santa Claus--led to the murder of millions of innocent people.
-- Ben Stein

#Book #Reading #Men

I hope it won't come as a surprise to anyone that a big part of male homosexual behavior is interest in young boys.
-- Ben Stein

#Boys #Males #Surprise

For any exam in history, here is the answer: all human history is the struggle between systems that attempt to shackle the human personality in the name of some intangible good on the one hand and systems that enable and expand the scope of human personality in the pursuit of extremely tangible aims. The American system is the most successful in the world because it harmonizes best with the aims and longings of human personality while allowing the best protection to other personalities.
-- Ben Stein

#Struggle #Successful #Hands

My feeling is that Darwinism is only at best a partial solution, and an extremely dangerous partial solution. I would say, based on the little I know, Darwinism explains microevolution within species quite well. As to its broader consequence and implications, I don't think it explains individual species evolution at all well.
-- Ben Stein

#Thinking #Feelings #Littles

I don't consider an actor a star if he's paid $20 million and grimaces in front of the camera and has a stunt man stand in for him. They may be fine actors, but they're not role models. The real stars are wearing body armor in 130-degree heat . . . They're getting shot at and they don't have any stunt doubles standing in for them.
-- Ben Stein

#Stars #Real #Men

The scientific community says that if you even mention God as causes of anything scientific, you're gone.
-- Ben Stein

#Community #Gone #Causes

I think Darwinism as a theory explaining evolution within species is incredibly brilliant - just unbelievably, incredibly brilliant.
-- Ben Stein

#Thinking #Brilliant #Evolution

But when I talk to people who are Darwinists or evolutionists and say, 'Well, how did life begin' -- they're...they don't have an answer. I mean, they have an answer, but it's a BS answer. It's an answer that wouldn't make sense to a small child.
-- Ben Stein

#Children #Mean #People

Evolutionism, as taught by Darwinism, has nothing - nothing - to say about how life originated. Has nothing to say about how the governing principles in the universe - gravity, thermodynamics, motion, fluid motion - how any of those originated. It's...it's got some gigantic missing pieces.
-- Ben Stein

#Missing #Principles #Pieces

Trying to pick individual stocks is a trap. I can't do it. Warren Buffett can, but hardly anyone else can beat the indexes over a long period of time.
-- Ben Stein

#Long #Trying #Warren Buffet

I spend so much time in fear of going broke, and I never have been even remotely close to going broke.
-- Ben Stein

#Broke

And there hasn't been much progress in Darwinism since [the life of Darwin].
-- Ben Stein

#Progress #Darwinism

We in the media are just people with all of people's faults.
-- Ben Stein

#Media #People #Faults

The people who did the collateralized mortgage obligations, sold them to pension funds, then sold them short, then bought credit default swap insurance on them, are just amazing. They are a law unto themselves.
-- Ben Stein

#Law #People #Credit

Screaming at children over their grades, especially to the point of the child's tears, is child abuse, pure and simple. It's not funny and it's not good parenting. It is a crushing, scarring, disastrous experience for the child. It isn't the least bit funny.
-- Ben Stein

#Crush #Children #Parenting

After all the black man has been through in this world, he can still often reach levels of spirituality the most pampered white man cannot touch. Maybe what he's been through is the reason why.
-- Ben Stein

#Men #White #Black

Yes, Americans can still get credit for cars and trucks and refrigerators, and those businesses are doing well. But just try to get a home loan now.
-- Ben Stein

#Home #Car #Trying

Somewhere there is a map of how it can be done.
-- Ben Stein

#Done #Maps #Planning

It means zero to be against greed.
-- Ben Stein

#Zero #Mean #Greed

If there are finer beings than German short hairs, I don't know what they are. In their eyes is peace.
-- Ben Stein

#Eye #Hair #Short Hair

Sleep more at night. If it's allowed at work or home, take a nap in the afternoon. You'll be amazed at how much better you'll feel.
-- Ben Stein

#Home #Sleep #Night

I am so in love with just lying in bed listening to Mozart.
-- Ben Stein

#Lying #Listening #Bed

If we are just specks of dust hit by lightning, if we have no spark of God in us, why not just take whatever we can and devil take the hindmost? I mean, we are fools not to do that if there is no right or wrong.
-- Ben Stein

#Mean #Dust #Devil

It is so great to sleep in safe, glorious, beautiful America. I just cannot get over it.
-- Ben Stein

#Beautiful #Sleep #America

When are American Jews going to realize that the Republican Party is far better for Israel than the Democrats?
-- Ben Stein

#Party #Israel #Realizing

I thought that all of the sacrifices and blessings of the whole history of mankind have devolved upon me. Thank you, God.
-- Ben Stein

#Thank You #Thanksgiving #Sacrifice

If you want to fight the evil you see in finance and industry, get to work reading the corporate filings, see if there has been fraud, and where you find it, report it to the SEC or write about it or blog about it.
-- Ben Stein

#Reading #Writing #Fighting

When I seemed to be irritable or sad, my father would quote the learned Dr. Knight, and then say, 'Just go to sleep.' Like all smart aleck kids, I thought the advice was silly. But as I've grown older, I've realized just how smart Knight was.
-- Ben Stein

#Smart #Father #Silly

We are not supposed to be all equal. Let's just forget that. We are supposed to have equal rights under law. If we do that, we have done enough.
-- Ben Stein

#Law #Rights #Done

If we try to engineer outcomes, if we overturn tradition to make everyone the same, we ruin society. If we upset tradition to allow for an equal shot at the starting gate, everyone wins, except for the charlatans and would be dictators.
-- Ben Stein

#Winning #Upset #Trying

It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated... it is finished when it surrenders.
-- Ben Stein

#Motivational #Perseverance #Spirit

I have to tell you I never in my life anticipated getting this old, this fast. It seems as if I were 25 just a few days ago.
-- Ben Stein

As Beverly Hills becomes more Iranian-Jewish, it is becoming politically conservative.
-- Ben Stein

#Beverly Hills #Becoming #Conservative

I love sleeping in a moving car more than sleeping in bed.
-- Ben Stein

#Moving #Sleep #Car

The ordinary American - as far as I can tell - knows so much less than he did fifty years ago and has such poor work habits compared with fifty years ago that the average multiplicand of knowledge/capabilities is a much smaller number than it was in 1961.
-- Ben Stein

#Average #Years #Numbers

Wow, bad news. Mr. Obama now hates Israel because the Israelis want to build 1,600 apartments in their own capital city, Jerusalem. Russia hates Israel, too. So do the Europeans. So does Ban Ki-moon, a Korean who is secretary-general of the UN.
-- Ben Stein

#Hate #Moon #Russia

Men and women succeed because they find a field of endeavor that matches their interests and abilities.
-- Ben Stein

#Men #Fields #Succeed

Americans are terrified because so many of them have been laid off in recent years and months and they fear that they may be next. Even if they have not been laid off or have not known anyone laid off, they definitely know someone who has lost his home.
-- Ben Stein

#Home #Years #May

I agree that there are some bad apples on Wall Street. I spent about ten years exposing corporate and financial fraud for 'Barron's' magazine and I found a lot to write about.
-- Ben Stein

#Wall #Writing #Years

My 'thing' is that I just lie in my immense bed and look out the window at the skyline over Virginia and the sky and the airplanes coming into Reagan. I really love doing that.
-- Ben Stein

#Lying #Airplane #Virginia

Sleep makes people calmer, more alert, less fearful - just plain happier, or so I see around me and in me. I am sure that if this great nation were to concentrate on getting more sleep, we would be a happier, more confident people, and that by itself would be a major achievement.
-- Ben Stein

#Sleep #People #Achievement

So, who in the media is without sin among us? I am in the media and I am a major league sinner. I don't know anyone except my wife who isn't a big time sinner.
-- Ben Stein

#Media #League #Wife

The banks are not lending, at least from what I see. They were so wild and reckless back in the good times that they got burned terribly.
-- Ben Stein

#Good Times #Reckless #Lending

The America that we knew as the smartest place on the planet is gone with the wind.
-- Ben Stein

#Wind #America #Gone

Israel being condemned by the EU, which 66 years ago watched with glee as its Jews were being mass murdered. That is pretty rich.
-- Ben Stein

#Israel #Years #Glee

If you can't stand the heat, don't go to Cancun in the summer.
-- Ben Stein

#Summer #Heat #Cancun

Greed is a basic part of animal nature. Being against it is like being against breathing or eating. It means nothing.
-- Ben Stein

#Mean #Animal #Breathing

I cannot tell you ... how to be rich. But I can tell you how to feel rich, which is far better, let me tell you firsthand, than being rich. Be grateful... It is the only totally reliable get rich quick scheme.
-- Ben Stein

#Gratitude #Grateful #Rich

I always assumed scientists were free to ask any question, pursue any line of inquiry without fear or reprisal.
-- Ben Stein

#Inquiry #Lines #Scientist

There's no evidence whatsoever that Darwin had anything useful to say or anything to say period about how life began or how the universe began or how gravity began or how physics began or fluid motion or how thermodynamics began. He had nothing to say about that whatsoever.
-- Ben Stein

#Physics #Fluid #Gravity

When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers, talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed ... that was horrifying beyond words, and that's where science in my opinion, this is just an opinion that's where science leads you.
-- Ben Stein

#Men #Thinking #Talking

Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place- science leads you to killing people.
-- Ben Stein

#Compassion #People #Empathy

There is no sudden leap into the stratosphere... There is only advancing step by step, slowly and tortuously, up the pyramid toward your goals...
-- Ben Stein

#Pyramids #Goal #Steps

Every soul deserves a shot at a Cadillac, but not everyone should be guaranteed a Cadillac.
-- Ben Stein

#Soul #Cadillacs #Should

What the White House is trying to do is racialize all politics and they're especially trying to tell the African-American voter that the GOP is against letting them have a chance at a good life in this economy, and that's just a complete lie,
-- Ben Stein

#Good Life #Lying #White

Life lived to help others is the only life that matters.
-- Ben Stein

#Helping Others #Matter #Helping