Ben Stein Quotes

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.

What's a good investment? Go home from work early and spend the afternoon throwing a ball around with your son.

I spend so much time in fear of going broke, and I never have been even remotely close to going broke.

When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers, talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed ... that was horrifying beyond words, and that's where science in my opinion, this is just an opinion that's where science leads you.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Humans are alive, therefore life must be complex.

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?

I think Darwinism as a theory explaining evolution within species is incredibly brilliant - just unbelievably, incredibly brilliant.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

I'm out and about meeting people all day long. And I'm very friendly; I talk to just about everybody I meet.

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.

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.

If there's a recession, I'd buy stocks. That's when you make money: when markets are spooked.

Prime-time network television has become an island without religion in an ever-more-religious America.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.'

The scientific community says that if you even mention God as causes of anything scientific, you're gone.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured ... But not everyone must prove they are a citizen.

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

For any exam in history, here is the answer: all human history is the struggle between systems that attempt to shackle the human personality in the name of some intangible good on the one hand and systems that enable and expand the scope of human personality in the pursuit of extremely tangible aims. The American system is the most successful in the world because it harmonizes best with the aims and longings of human personality while allowing the best protection to other personalities.

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 .

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

I'm an economist by training. I don't really work as an economist. I only worked briefly as an economist.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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 sad fact is that spending rises every year, no matter what people want or say they want.

We're a lazy, undisciplined generation. I don't exempt myself: I spend way too much, even though I make a good income.

It means zero to be against greed.

I hope it won't come as a surprise to anyone that a big part of male homosexual behavior is interest in young boys.

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

Running a real business is exacting, daunting, repetitive work. Even in Silicon Valley.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

When Hollywood sees a good story about a man who sells confidence, they see themselves and they like it.

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.

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

Happiness is being grateful for what you have and having an attitude of gratitude instead of an attitude of envy.

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

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?

My feeling is that Darwinism is only at best a partial solution, and an extremely dangerous partial solution. I would say, based on the little I know, Darwinism explains microevolution within species quite well. As to its broader consequence and implications, I don't think it explains individual species evolution at all well.

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

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 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 don't consider an actor a star if he's paid $20 million and grimaces in front of the camera and has a stunt man stand in for him. They may be fine actors, but they're not role models. The real stars are wearing body armor in 130-degree heat ... They're getting shot at and they don't have any stunt doubles standing in for them.