Ben Stein

Darwinism doesn't explain where gravity comes from. It doesn't explain where thermodynamics comes from. It doesn't explain where the laws of physics come from. It doesn't explain where matter came from.

If there is no God, then man sometimes thinks he is god, and sometimes tries to live like a god.

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.

It isn't the rich people's fault that poor people are poor. Poor people who get an education and work hard in this country will stop being poor. That should be the goal for all poor people everywhere.

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

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.

The education system should teach us about money; it's an incredibly big subject. I run into people all the time that don't have the first clue of what they should do about money.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Now, although my life is still pleasant, the days of easy money are over.

So many fail because they don't get started - they don't go. They don't overcome inertia. They don't begin.

The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Screaming at children over their grades especially to the point of the childs tears is child abuse pure and simple. Its not funny and its not good parenting. It is a crushing scarring disastrous experience for the child. It isnt the least bit funny.

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.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.

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

Israel is our strongest, most reliable ally in the Middle East. Of course, we're their most reliable ally, too.

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

I don't really consider myself to be a personal finance expert compared with some others. There are quite a few that know a lot more than I do.

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.

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.

This is my life. I love it.

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

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

I love sleeping in a moving car more than sleeping in bed.

I am scared of getting old. I am scared of being ill.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.

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.

I'd say the main way people get into terrible financial trouble is just to spend too much money relative to their income, and that is an endemic problem in the United States of America, and that's the kind of thing that should be taught about in schools.

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

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.'

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.

You can do what you think you can do and you cannot do what you think you cannot.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this Decide what you want.

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.

I tell you why I don't think I will ever vote for a Democrat, if I may say so. Because for me, the number one issue is right to life, and I don't think the Democrats are very good on the right-to-life issue.

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.

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.

Every soul deserves a shot at a Cadillac but not everyone should be guaranteed a Cadillac.

I am scared of running out of money.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

I have always been very concerned that Darwinism gave the basic okay to terrible racism and to the idea of murder based upon race.

Academic freedom is being lost by a great many people who dare to challenge Darwinism. That's a terrifying situation. That's contrary to the principles of science.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

We are not supposed to be all equal. Lets just forget that. We are supposed to have equal rights under law. If we do that we have done enough.

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

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.

It means zero to be against greed.