Top 116 Quotes & Sayings by Ben Carson - Page 2

Over the years my mother's steadfast faith in God has inspired me, particularly when I had to perform extremely difficult surgical procedures or when I found myself faced with my own medical scare.

We've reached a point where people are actually afraid to talk about what they want to say, because somebody might be offended. We've got to get over this sensitivity and it keeps people from saying what they really believe.

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.

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.

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.

What I agree with is that we need a significantly changed taxation system. And the one that I've advocated is based on tithing, because I think God is a pretty fair guy. And he said, you know, if you give me a tithe, it doesn't matter how much you make.

I don't want my kids to grow up with no father like I did. I came to the conclusion a while ago that you can work until midnight and not be finished or you can work until 6 or 7 and not be finished. I decided I'd rather work until 6 or 7.

I believe that things are always going to work out, even if in the beginning it doesn't look like they are working out. I know in the long run they are going to work out, and it's going to be fine.

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.

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.

I serve God, and my purpose is to please Him, and if God be for you, who can be against you?

The key is to cut out the middleman and empower both doctor and patient with information about what things cost.

In general I was a good kid. It usually took a lot to make me mad. But once I reached the boiling point, I lost all rational control. Totally without thinking, when my anger was aroused, I grabbed the nearest brick, rock, or stick to bash someone. It was as if I had no conscious will in the matter.

Corporations are not in business to be social-welfare organizations; they are there to make money.

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.

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.

I would never turn my back on my fellow citizens.

The government is supposed to conform to our will. By taking the most important thing you have, your health and your health care, and turning that over to the government, you fundamentally shift the power, a huge chunk of it, from the people to the government. This is not the direction that we want the government to go in this nation.

I detest politics, to be honest with you. It's a cesspool. And I don't think I would fare well in that cesspool because I don't believe in political correctness and I certainly don't believe in dishonesty.

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?

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.

There is no one that we can afford to throw away.

What do lawyers learn in law school? They learn to win... What we've got to start thinking about is how do we solve problems.

There is no fulfillment in things whatsoever. And I think one of the reasons that depression reigns supreme amongst the rich and famous is some of them thought that maybe those things would bring them happiness. But what, in fact, does is having a cause, having a passion. And that's really what gives life's true meaning.

Well, when did this become a monarchy? You know, we are the people. The president works for us and, you know, we need to remember that.

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.'

You need an incredible amount of self-confidence to go digging around in someone's brain.

I have this feeling that as time goes on, we're not getting any more civilized, and we should be. We're still running around like the days of Genghis Khan. There are so many important, better things to do and we need to encourage people to reach into the brighter side of humanity and not encourage people to continue to glorify the darker side.

If God thinks proportionality is fair who are we to say that it is unfair?

One of the reasons surgeons have so much trouble separating Siamese twins is that nobody gets to do many of them. On the table, the anatomy is so different from normal, that you're constantly trying to figure out, 'Can I cut this? Does this wire lead to what?' It's like trying to defuse a bomb.

Nobody is starving on the streets. We've always taken care of them. We take care of our own; we always have. It is not the government's responsibility.

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.

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.

Every time I am looking into the depths of somebody's brain, I'm thinking, 'This is what makes a person who they are. That structure contains memories. Everything that they've ever experienced is right in there.'

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 actually don't think that I'm that much smarter than anybody else. It's just that I frequently just seem to know what to do, and I think that's wisdom.

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.

You're going to be much less likely to point the finger at somebody and create a huge brouhaha when it wasn't necessary if you had stopped and asked yourself, 'Could I have done things to prevent this situation?'

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

Let's let everybody believe what they want to believe. And that means, P.C. police, don't you be coming down on people who believe in God and who believe in Jesus.

God has opened many doors of opportunity throughout my lifetime, but I believe the greatest of those doors was allowing me to be born in the United States of America.

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.

It's very important for people to know themselves and understand what their value system is, because if you don't know what your value system is, then you don't know what risks are worth taking and which ones are worth avoiding.

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.

We live in a country that used to have a can-do attitude, and now we have a 'what-can-you-do-for-me?' attitude, and what I try to do is find ways that we can develop common ground.

We're not planning for the future. If we continue to spend ourselves into oblivion, we are going to destroy this nation.

There is no such thing as a politically correct war.

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.

I was definitely an at-risk kid growing up.

When I entered high school I was an A-student, but not for long. I wanted the fancy clothes. I wanted to hang out with the guys. I went from being an A-student to a B-student to a C-student, but I didn't care. I was getting the high fives and the low fives and the pats on the back. I was cool.

Well, I say that the most important job you can possibly have is raising a child, and it needs to be treated that way. You have to show them, rather than just talk to them.

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.

I pray before I go into the operating room for every case, and I ask him to give me wisdom, to help me to know what to do - and not only for operating, but for everything.

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.

Here's a nation, one of the founding pillars was freedom of speech and freedom of expression. And yet, we have imposed upon people restrictions on what they can say, on what they can think. And the media is the largest proponent of this, crucifying people who say things really quite innocently.

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.