“When business starts using its voice for the benefit of the country as a whole, not just in its narrow self interest, it can really be the force that can make the changes that need to be made.”

We decided to redefine the bottom line at Ben & Jerry’s

There is a spiritual aspect to our lives – when we give, we receive-when a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them!

Never trust a skinny ice cream man.

The key to growing a business is that you need to be meeting some segment of the consumer’s needs. If you’ve got a small business and a product or service that is not popular, you simply have to change your product or service to be more popular.

Business has a responsibility to give back to the community.

I don’t believe that just because one person is born on one side of some imaginary line and another person is born on the other side means that a lot of people should be getting screwed through no fault of their own.

If you’re aware of injustice, you can either ignore it, say there is nothing you can do about it, complain about it and not do anything, or put your energies into doing something about it.

If we reduced the amount we spend on maintaining our nuclear weapons by a small fraction, we could reallocate those funds to improve kids’ health care and schooling.

It’s crazy that in a country where schools are falling apart, we’re spending $20 billion on nuclear weapons.

Having the equivalent of 150,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs at the ready does nothing to protect us from terrorists planning to sneak in a bomb through a cargo container.

We learned that a product doesn’t sell just because you’re trying to do good in the world. You still have to have a healthy distribution, a good marketing strategy, and price the product properly.

As we help others, we cannot help but help ourselves.

The special forces gave me the self-confidence to do some extraordinary things in my life. Climbing Everest then cemented my belief in myself.

The problem is that if you’re self-conscious about being a person on whom nothing is lost, isn’t something lost – some kind of presence? You’re distracted by trying to be totally, perfectly impressionable.

I wasn’t supported, I wasn’t given any self-esteem.

The battle of yoga is with the body and with the ego. You must conquer your ego, or small self, so that you can let your soul, your big Self, be victorious.

It is no use lying to one’s self.

A friend once asked me what qualities were needed for SAS. I would say to be self-motivated and resilient; to be calm, yet have the ability to smile when it is grim; to be unflappable, be able to react fast and to have an ‘improvise, adapt and overcome’ mentality.

I have a horror of being self-indulgent and wasting time, and there is that risk in doing this kind of work. Are you totally deluded in sitting down at a desk every day and trying to write something? Is it self-indulgent, or might it possibly lead to something worthwhile?

Every single time I step into the studio, I say, ‘Can I still do this? Do I still have it? Have I ever had it?’ I suppose there’s a good amount of self-loathing that goes into any form of artisanship.