Ben Stein Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

No one will do it for you.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Science should always be in the business of attempting to disprove itself.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It's a great stretch for me to do my game show. It's very hard. It's not me at all. The only part that's me is sort of when I'm sitting in the booth looking tormented. That's the only part that's the real me.

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 poor black people in it make the black people in Gone With the Wind look like Malcolm X.

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

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.

I was a trial lawyer. At the same time, I was a teacher. I taught about the political and social content of film for American University. Then I left and became a teacher at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I taught about the political and social content of film, but I also taught a course in law for undergraduates.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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