Ben Stein Quotes - Page 3

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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.

Humans are alive, therefore life must be complex.

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

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?