Top 100 Ben Stein Quotes
#1. 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
#2. I am so used to having a comfortable life. What will it be like when I am no longer able to just buy anything I want?
Ben Stein
#3. Prime-time network television has become an island without religion in an ever-more-religious America.
Ben Stein
#4. It's a lot better to hope than not to.
Ben Stein
#6. Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don't pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.
Ben Stein
#7. I have talent at playing myself. I don't have a very broad range, but at playing myself I am a wizard. It's more than fun; it's the best job on Earth.
Ben Stein
#8. We're a lazy, undisciplined generation. I don't exempt myself: I spend way too much, even though I make a good income.
Ben Stein
#9. 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
#10. I thought that all of the sacrifices and blessings of the whole history of mankind have devolved upon me. Thank you, God.
Ben Stein
#11. Science leads you to killing people.
Ben Stein
#12. I am scared of getting old. I am scared of being ill.
Ben Stein
#13. 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
#14. 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
#15. 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
#16. We in the media are just people with all of people's faults.
Ben Stein
#17. 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
#18. 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
#19. As to a media personality, well that just happened in large measure because people found me amusing, and I did lots and lots of T.V. news interview shows.
Ben Stein
#20. Hollywood is largely about scammers and con men. It was my main livelihood for about 25 years, and the scams were beautiful and ugly, cheap and expensive, but, wow, were there a lot of scammers.
Ben Stein
#21. 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
#22. Humans are alive, therefore life must be complex.
Ben Stein
#23. 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
#24. 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
#25. So many fail because they don't get started - they don't go. They don't overcome inertia. They don't begin.
Ben Stein
#26. 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
#27. As Beverly Hills becomes more Iranian-Jewish, it is becoming politically conservative.
Ben Stein
#28. Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.
Ben Stein
#29. It's amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.
Ben Stein
#30. And there hasn't been much progress in Darwinism since [the life of Darwin].
Ben Stein
#31. I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against.
Ben Stein
#32. I spend so much time in fear of going broke, and I never have been even remotely close to going broke.
Ben Stein
#33. Being a Daddy is priority number one. When you are old and facing oblivion in a nursing home or a hospital or on a golf course in winter, you are not going to wish you had spent more time at the office or making a sales call or watching a show. You will wish you had spent more time with your family.
Ben Stein
#34. 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
#35. Could Congress really do its work if it held its sessions by teleconferencing? Could the Supreme Court? Nothing can replace the spark of intelligence that travels from person to person at meetings.
Ben Stein
#36. 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
#37. Now, although my life is still pleasant, the days of easy money are over.
Ben Stein
#38. The scientific community says that if you even mention God as causes of anything scientific, you're gone.
Ben Stein
#39. The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.
Ben Stein
#40. 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
#41. 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
#42. Every soul deserves a shot at a Cadillac, but not everyone should be guaranteed a Cadillac.
Ben Stein
#43. Jump into the middle of things, get your hands dirty, fall flat on your face, and then reach for the stars.
Ben Stein
#44. I'm not a Mensa member. I have no idea where that rumor came from. I never have been, and I doubt if I ever will be.
Ben Stein
#45. 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
#46. The first step in getting what you want from life-decide what you want.
Ben Stein
#47. For me, I've always believed that there was a God. I've always believed that God created the heavens and earth - so, for me it's not a huge leap from there to intelligent design.
Ben Stein
#48. 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
#49. My pals, such as they are, in Hollywood, ask me why I love to travel to D.C. so much, why it's a vacation destination for me. I say, 'Because I sometimes have perfect days there.'
Ben Stein
#50. I have always been very diversified, so I have never suffered a catastrophic loss. I spread my money around the way a large institutional investor does. I use different brokerage firms. I manage some of my accounts myself ...
Ben Stein
#51. If there is no God, why bother to tell the truth? Why not steal?
Ben Stein
#52. I think it's criminal how little people in the military are paid. These are people out risking their lives, taken away from their families for long periods of time. I think they should be paid dramatically more than they're paid.
Ben Stein
#53. I don't think Wall Street people in general are smart. I think that's one of the biggest myths in American lore. They're tough, aggressive, greedy, quick thinking but I don't think they're particularly smart at all.
Ben Stein
#54. Happiness is being grateful for what you have and having an attitude of gratitude instead of an attitude of envy.
Ben Stein
#55. 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
#56. Greed is a basic part of animal nature. Being against it is like being against breathing or eating. It means nothing.
Ben Stein
#57. When Hollywood sees a good story about a man who sells confidence, they see themselves and they like it.
Ben Stein
#58. Men and women succeed because they find a field of endeavor that matches their interests and abilities.
Ben Stein
#59. 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
#60. 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
#61. 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
#62. The sad fact is that spending rises every year, no matter what people want or say they want.
Ben Stein
#63. 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
#64. 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
#65. I am so in love with just lying in bed listening to Mozart.
Ben Stein
#66. If you can't stand the heat, don't go to Cancun in the summer.
Ben Stein
#67. I always assumed scientists were free to ask any question, pursue any line of inquiry without fear or reprisal.
Ben Stein
#69. 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
#70. People getting rich in a free society in general - with some scammy exceptions, which are rare - makes everyone else richer, too.
Ben Stein
#71. 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
#72. Israel is our strongest, most reliable ally in the Middle East. Of course, we're their most reliable ally, too.
Ben Stein
#73. 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
#74. Traders can cause short-term volatility. In the long run, the market must revert to a sensible price/earnings multiple.
Ben Stein
#75. 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
#76. People ask how I can be a conservative and still want higher taxes. It makes my head spin, and I guess it shows how old I am. But I thought that conservatives were supposed to like balanced budgets. I thought it was the conservative position to not leave heavy indebtedness to our grandchildren.
Ben Stein
#77. 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
#78. What's a good investment? Go home from work early and spend the afternoon throwing a ball around with your son.
Ben Stein
#79. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it.
Ben Stein
#80. I think Darwinism as a theory explaining evolution within species is incredibly brilliant - just unbelievably, incredibly brilliant.
Ben Stein
#81. Life lived to help others is the only life that matters.
Ben Stein
#82. If Iran and North Korea, by some horrible, devilish, nightmarish scenario, got together and went to war at the same time, one against Saudi Arabia and one against South Korea, I don't know what we would do about that. I don't know that we could stop them short of using nuclear weapons.
Ben Stein
#83. 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
#84. 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
#85. The America that we knew as the smartest place on the planet is gone with the wind.
Ben Stein
#86. 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
#87. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.
Ben Stein
#88. I don't like the sound of all the lists he's making.
Ben Stein
#89. 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
#90. 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
#91. Somewhere there is a map of how it can be done.
Ben Stein
#92. 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
#93. I love sleeping in a moving car more than sleeping in bed.
Ben Stein
#94. I am scared of running out of money.
Ben Stein
#95. 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
#96. I have a great pic of my father and Rev. Graham laughing hysterically at some joke with George Pratt Shultz looking on back in 1972 or so.
Ben Stein
#97. 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
#98. Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all success, all achievement in real life grows.
Ben Stein
#99. 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
#100. 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
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