Ben Carson Quotes

I would never turn my back on my fellow citizens.

This is a country for, of, and by the people not for, of, and by the government. If we turn it over to them we cannot complain about what they're doing because this is a natural course of men and we have to hold their feet to the fire.

Our founders did not believe that our society could thrive without this kind of moral social structure. In fact, it was our second president, John Adams, who said of our thoroughly researched and developed governing document, Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Some historical revisionists have also attempted to diminish the role of God and religion in our nation's past. A careful examination of the records, however, makes it quite clear that religion was a very important factor in the development of our nation. In 1831 when Alexis de Tocqueville came to America to try to unravel the secrets to the success of a fledgling nation that was already competing with the powers of Europe on virtually every level, he discovered that we had a fantastic public educational system that rendered anyone who had finished the second grade completely literate. He was more astonished to discover that the Bible was an important tool used to teach moral principles in our public schools. No particular religious denomination was revered, but rather commonly accepted biblical truths became the backbone of our social structure.

Our schools too often want to shut people up so they can't talk about real solutions. People who think differently tend to clam up because they think something is wrong with their ideas.

If we no longer talk freely and openly about faith, we won't understand the language or the significance of faith, we'll misinterpret the religious words and deeds of others, and we'll underestimate the power faith can have in the lives of those deeply committed to their spiritual beliefs. This may present a serious risk to a generation whose most troubling conflicts promise to involve people who are primarily motivated by a very different faith. If we don't understand the faith roots of our American culture, how will we be able to defend it against theirs?

America's leaders should be examples of integrity and high moral standards. When their behavior evokes shame rather than pride and becomes something that we don't want to discuss in front of the children at the kitchen table, we should consider impeachment.

But, you know, we have these entrenched entities - and I'm talking about both Republicans and Democrats - who believe that when you're elected to office, you become some kind of member of the aristocracy, and that anyone who challenges you is attacking you and is unpatriotic. This is foolishness.

It becomes somewhat absurd when some claim that the sight of a Bible or a cross causes them so much psychological distress that it impinges upon their freedom. It is important that we learn to be reasonable and tolerant of everyone's beliefs without going to such extremes that we compromise everyone's rights.

I started reading about people of great accomplishment ... and it dawned on me suddenly that the person who has the most to do with what happens in your life is you.

I want the government to provide the military so we don't get invaded by somebody and destroyed. I want the government to provide the roads so I can get from point A to B. In terms of taking care of my day to day needs, I want to do that myself. I want my community to do that.

When I look at the human brain I'm still in awe of it.

The human brain has billions of neurons and hundreds of billions of interconnections. It can process more than two million bits of information per second and can remember everything you have ever seen or heard.

There was a time when I was a hothead, and my temper wreaked havoc in my life until I learned to take myself out of the center of the circle. The real key to staying cool and calm is to relinquish selfishness and always consider the feelings of others.

I've had experiences in my life that leave no doubt in my mind about the fact that God exists. I'm quite willing to debate people who don't think so because I want them to explain to me how did our solar system get so organized and how is the universe so complex and yet well-organized that we can predict 70 years hence when a comet is coming?

Here is the treasure chest of the world - the public library, or a bookstore.

Our - our friends can't trust us anymore. You know, Ukraine was a nuclear-armed state. They gave away their nuclear arms with the understanding that we would protect them. We won't even give them offensive weapons.

There's one more serious risk for America that I want to mention here - the risk we have created by shouting down and shutting up any discussion of faith in the public square. It's as if we've decided expressions or discussions of faith shouldn't qualify as free speech. What's even stranger is the way it has somehow been tied to the concept of separation of church and state, even though that concept has nothing to do with people living by or publicly discussing their faith.

First, we cannot overload the human brain. This divinely created brain has fourteen billion cells. If used to the maximum, this human computer inside our heads could contain all the knowledge of humanity from the beginning of the world to the present and still have room left over. Second, not only can we not overload our brain - we also know that our brain retains everything. I often use saying that "The brain acquires everything that we encounter." The difficulty does not come with the input of information, but getting it out. Sometimes we "file" information randomly of little importance, and it confuses us.

I am convinced that knowledge is power - to overcome the past, to change our own situations, to fight new obstacles, to make better decisions.

You know, I'm a physician. I like to diagnose things. And, you know, I've diagnosed some pretty, pretty significant issues that I think a lot of people resonate with.

I had not been content just to read and to learn. I

The founders also knew that every government system risks corruption, and they wanted to make sure Americans would be able to defend themselves should the nation's leaders become tyrannical. To that end, they ratified the Second Amendment, guaranteeing the right of Americans to bear arms. An armed populace is a powerful deterrent to tyrants both domestically and internationally, and we must defend this liberty as part of our common defense.

Class warfare is an artificial division created for political advantage, and it should be rejected outright

It is unlikely that it was the intention of the founders to give any public official the ability to thwart the will of the people. Although they may have been concerned about mob rule and wanted a judicial system that would prevent that, they also recognized that in many other countries it was assumed that the ruling class always knew better than the people, and they wanted no part of such a system.

Because if you don't accept excuses, pretty soon people stop giving them, and they start looking for solutions. And that is a critical issue when it comes to success.

Compromise is most likely when both parties respect each other no matter how much they disagree. In stressful situations where you need a consensus, respect sometimes means saying nothing and refraining from name-calling even when irritated.

As it stands today we have too many lawyers in government - many of whom are very smart and decent people - but they are not immune from acting like lawyers. Consequently, we have far too much regulatory legislation. Also, what do many lawyers learn in law school? They learn to win by hook or by crook; it doesn't matter how you fight as long as you win. Imagine a roomful of Democratic and Republican lawyers, each with one overriding goal to win, and this certainly helps one understand the distasteful partisan politics that characterizes Congress today.

The Roman Empire was very, very much like us. They lost their moral core, their sense of values in terms of who they were. And after all of those things converged together, they just went right down the tubes very quickly.

When a government turns from following the will of its people to willing its people to follow - acting according to its own prerogatives - it ceases to be a representative government and instead has transformed into something else. One

I think one of the keys to leadership is recognizing that everybody has gifts and talents. A good leader will learn how to harness those gifts toward the same goal.

We want to make decisions based on facts. Many people do not. They make their decisions based on what their momma says or what their daddy says or what their political party says - without engaging their brains.

Is commonplace today to find large groups of people who believe the government has a responsibility to take care of all the basic necessities of its citizens. Benjamin Franklin, however, wrote: To relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures is concurring with the Deity; it is godlike; but, if we provide encouragement for laziness, and supports for folly, may we not be found fighting against the order of God and nature, which perhaps has appointed want and misery as the proper punishments for, and cautions against, as well as necessary consequences of, idleness and extravagance? Whenever we attempt to amend the scheme of Providence, and to interfere with the government of the world, we had need be very circumspect, lest we do more harm than good.3

People spending more of their own money on routine health care would make the system more competitive and transparent and restore the confidence between the patients and the doctors without government rationing.

One reason I didn't hold any grudges or harsh feelings toward Dad must have been that my mother seldom blamed him - at least not to us or in our hearing. I can hardly think of a time when she spoke against him.

We should be concerned not only about the health of individual patients, but also the health of our entire society.

If we recognize our talents and use them appropriately, and choose a field that uses those talents, we will rise to the top of our field.

When the Vietnamese came to the United States they often faced prejudice from everyone - White, Black, and Hispanics. But they didn't beg for handouts and often took the lowest jobs offered. Even well-educated individuals didn't mind sweeping floors if it was a paying job. Today many of these same Vietnamese are property owners and entrepreneurs. That's the message I try to get across to the young people. The same opportunities are there, but we can't start out as vice president of the company. Even if we landed such a position, it wouldn't do us any good anyway because we wouldn't know how to do our work. It's better to start where we can fit in and then work our way up.

The P.C. police are out in force at all times ... We've reached a point where people are actually afraid to talk about what they want to say.

If you go and talk to most people, they mean well but they don't have much of a breadth on education, of knowledge of understanding what the real issues are and therefore they listen to pundits on television who tell them what they are supposed to think and they keep repeating that until pretty soon they say, 'Oh, well that must be true.'

If we commit ourselves to reading thus increasing our knowledge, only God limits how far we can go in this world.

In an ideal world, both parties would desire to uphold the Constitution,

In any career, whether as a surgeon, a musician, or a secretary, one needs to have a confidence that says, I can do anything, and if I can't do it, I know how to get help.

There is so much potential out there in young people and they aren't getting the right information or being encouraged in the right ways. This is our duty as a society.

There's absolutely no reason at all that physicians, scientists, shouldn't be involved in things that affect all of us.

70,000 to 100,000 births; twins joined at the head occur only once in 2 to 2.5 million births. Siamese twins received their name because of the birthplace (Siam) of Chang and Eng (1811 - 1874) whom P.T. Barnum exhibited across America and Europe. Most cranio pagus Siamese twins die at birth or shortly afterward. So far as we know, not more than 50 attempts had previously been made to separate such twins. Of those, less than ten operations have resulted in two fully normal children. Aside from the skill of the operating surgeons, the success depends largely on how much and what kind of tissue the babies share. Occipital cranio pugus twins (such as the Binders) had never before been separated with both surviving.

When I treat other people with kindness and love, it is part of my way of paying my debt to God and the world for the privilege of living on this planet.

Unfortunately, the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government have become increasingly concerned with their image and their political parties, have drifted away from strict interpretations of the Constitution, and have substituted their own ideologies for the original vision. As a result, our government produces massively complicated taxation schemes, impossibly intricate and uninterpretable health care laws, and other intrusive measures instead of being a watchful guardian of our rights. Instead of providing an environment that allows diligent people to thrive on the basis of their own hard work and entrepreneurship, our government has taken on the role of trying to care for everyone's needs and redistributing the fruits of everyone's labors in a way consistent with its own ideology.

Success is determined not by whether or not you face obstacles, but by your reaction to them. And if you look at these obstacles as a containing fence, they become your excuse for failure. If you look at them as a hurdle, each one strengthens you for the next.

If we can take young people who excel at the highest levels, put them on the same kind of pedestal as the all-state basketball player and the all-state football player, and begin to get the same kind of recognition, it will have a profound effect, and we are finding that it does.

With everything that is complex, we learn. If you don't learn, then it's an utter and abject failure. If you do learn, and you're able to apply that to the next situation, then you take away a measure of success.

You can't allow the forces of political correction to shut you up. I mean, why are people afraid to say, 'Merry Christmas?' Give me a break. If people don't like it, yeah, they can go do something else.

Although I strongly believe in individual rights and the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit, I also recognize that public health and public safety are extremely important in our society. Certain communicable diseases have been largely eradicated by immunization policies in this country. We should not allow those diseases to return by forgoing safety immunization programs for philosophical, religious or other reasons when we have the means to eradicate them.

Don't let anyone turn you into a slave. You're a slave if you let the media tell you that sports and entertainment are more important than developing your brain.

The culture in which we live stresses looking out for number one. Without adopting such a self-centered value system, we can demand the best of ourselves while we are extending our hands to help others.

Being a member of a minority race doesn't mean being a minority achiever.

There is a tendency of people to try to make you believe only a few people are smart. As a brain surgeon, I know better than that.

We have the purveyors of hatred who take every single incident between people of two races and try to make a race war out of it and drive wedges into people. And this does not need to be done.

I hope we can continue to find ways to encourage integrity in all aspects of government operations

I have to come to realize that God does not want to punish us, but rather, to fulfill our lives. God created us, loves us and wants to help us to realize our potential so that we can be useful to others.

Anyone who writes a law that cannot be easily understood by an average citizen is not worthy of leadership. The Constitution, which was written by extremely learned men, is quite easy to understand and should serve as a gold standard for the language and size of subsequent legislation that is introduced.

If you wouldn't join in a mugging you saw taking place on a street, if you wouldn't physically attack or verbally abuse and cruelly insult an acquaintance in your school, why would you ever ridicule or hurl vicious and hurtful words at a person online?

Even if you're Bill Gates, you've got problems. I'm sure he would probably easily give a few billion dollars to get rid of all the problems that he has.

I am a small-government person, and I greatly oppose government intrusion into everything. Still, it is essential that we distinguish between those things that are important and those things that are just intruding upon our basic privacy. Whether to participate in childhood immunizations would be an individual choice if individuals were the only ones affected, but as previously mentioned, our children are part of our larger community. None of us lives in isolation. Your decision does not affect only you - it also affects your fellow Americans.

The doors of the world are open to dose who can read.

Civility and political correctness, contrary to the thinking of many, are not the same. Civility constrains behavior and words based on genuine caring about others, while political correctness is only a facade of caring while hoping to cultivate public approval.

There is no such thing as an average human being. If you have a normal brain, you are superior.

Intelligent people tend to talk about the facts. They don't sit around and call each other names. That's what you can find on a third grade playground.

There is no freedom without bravery.

Before this country came on the scene, for thousands of years people did things the same way. Within 200 years of the advent of this nation, men were walking on the moon, and I want us to recognize this is the kind of people that we are. We're creative with a lot of ingenuity and a lot of energy.

If most of the people in the country believe that America is generally fair and decent, it becomes more difficult for Saul Alinsky types to recruit change agents and for those on the Far Left to undermine our Constitution. Hence the constant bad-mouthing of our nation to impressionable young people, preparing them to be ripe for manipulation at the appropriate time.

What is the best thing that happens if we refuse to abide by the dictates of political correctness? I believe that we could return to a nation that truly cherishes freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

all. Unfortunately, polarizing influences - such as unions that want what they want, gay rights groups, isolationists, and others who cannot or will not consider the opinions of others - have become stronger in recent years, robbing from the pool of moderate legislators and increasing the numbers

What we have to stop and think about is that we have weakened ourselves militarily to such an extent that it affects all of our military policies.

I came to realize that if people could make me angry they could could control me. Why should I give someone else such power over my life?

Then let's use this incredible tool God has given us to assess the risks that we face every day. We have the means to analyze risks and decide which are worth taking and which should be avoided. Do you have a brain? Then use it. That's the secret. That's my simple but powerful prescription for life, love, and success in a dangerous world.

What we have to remember is we want to utilize the tremendous intellect that we have in the military to win wars. I've talked to a lot of the generals, a lot of our advanced people. And believe me, if we gave them the mission, which is what the commander-in-chief does, they would be able to carry it out.

I had a mother who would never allow herself to be a victim no matter what happened ... Never made excuses, and she never accepted an excuse from us. And if we ever came up with an excuse, she always said, "Do you have a brain?" And if the answer was yes, then she said, "Then you could have thought your way out of it.

We were very poor. But between the covers of books I could go anywhere, I could be anybody, I could do anything. I began to read about people of great accomplishment. As I read those stories, I began to see a connecting thread. I began to see that the person who had the most to do with you and what happened to you in life, is you. You make decisions. You decide how much energy you want to put behind that decision.

I've advocated a proportional tax system. You make $10 billion, you pay a billion. You make $10, you pay one. And everybody gets treated the same way.

The fact that our government is using instruments of government like the IRS to punish its opponents, this is not the kind of thing that is a Democrat or a Republican issue. This is an American issue ... A lot of people do not feel free to express themselves.

You have the ability to choose which way you want to go. You have to believe great things are going to happen in your life. Do everything you can - prepare, pray and achieve - to make it happen.

You can understand why I'm a believer. I have seen miracles.

When someone is being particularly mean and nasty, I simply think to myself, he or she used to be a cute little baby, I wonder what happened?

Through education, I was completely changed to become a productive citizen of the world. And what is true in the life of one is true in the life of whole communities and entire nations: education has the power to transform.

Successful people don't have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.

We all have choices in the way we react to the words we hear. Our lives and the lives of all those around us will be significantly improved if we choose to react positively rather than negatively.

I sank down on the toilet, sharp mental pictures of other temper fits filling my mind. I saw my anger, clenched my fists against my rage. I wouldn't be any good for anything if I couldn't change. My poor mother, I thought. She believes in me. Not even she knows how bad I am. Misery engulfed me in darkness. "If you don't do this for me, God, I've got no place else to go." At one point I'd slipped out of the bathroom long enough to grab a Bible. Now I opened it and

There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave, There are souls that are pure and true; Then give the world the best you have, And the best will come back to you. Madeline Bridges

I am fond of saying that if two people think and say the same thing about everything, then one of them is not necessary.

something happened to me. God heard my deep cries of anguish. A feeling of lightness flowed over me, and I knew a change of heart had taken place. I felt different. I was different. At last I stood up, placed the Bible on the edge of the tub, and went to the sink. I washed my face and hands, straightened my clothes. I walked out of the bathroom a changed young man. "My temper will never control me again," I told myself. "Never again. I'm free." And since that day, since those long hours wrestling with myself and crying to God for help, I have never had a problem with my temper. That

I have no problem whatsoever with allowing gay people to live as they please, as long as they don't try to impose their lifestyle on everyone else.

No knowledge is ever wasted.

What you're saying is that 'I, the superior elite, will take care of you.' Why? Because, you see, that superior, elite group needs to feel superior and elite. And they can't be superior and elite unless you have a whole lot of people down there groveling around. So you keep them down there by feeding them.

Through hard work, perseverance and a faith in God, you can live your dreams.

Close the wounds, and the 22-hour surgical ordeal was over. The Siamese

When politicians prioritize local rule instead of trying to force the whole country to agree with them, I think the pursuit of happiness will be within the reach of a far greater portion of our populace.

One way to develop courage is to consider what will happen if we fail to act.

We also received food stamps and bus tokens. Even though she was not a welfare mom, my mother still very much appreciated the government assistance we did receive from time to time. Still, I had an inherent dislike for government assistance and was frankly quite embarrassed that we had to accept anything from them.

Compassion, however, should mean providing a mechanism to escape poverty rather than simply maintaining people in an impoverished state by supplying handouts. By doing this we give them an opportunity to elevate their personal situations, which eventually decreases our need to take care of them and empowers them to be able to exercise compassion toward others.