“The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.””

I don’t subscribe to the thesis, ‘Let the buyer beware,’ I prefer the disregarded one that goes, ‘Let the seller be honest.’

The intelligent man is never bored.

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

Better to make a good future than predict a bad one.

You don’t have to be able to lay eggs to know when one of them is rotten.

There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.

Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo.

If I am right, then (religious fundamentalists) will not go to Heaven, because there is no Heaven. If they are right, then they will not go to Heaven, because they are hypocrites.

Feminine intuition? Is that what you wanted the robot for? You men. Faced with a woman reaching a correct conclusion and unable to accept the fact that she is your equal or superior in intelligence, you invent something called feminine intuition.

Since emotions are few and reasons are many (said the robot Giscard) the behavior of a crowd can be more easily predicted than the behavior of one person.

Man’s greatest asset is the unsettled mind.

All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else.

Nothing has to be true, but everything has to sound true.

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.

If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success – but only if you persist.

Great talent stands in line to join your team because the culture becomes the stuff of legend.

We decided that if we get the culture right, most of the stuff, like building a brand around delivering the very best customer service, will just take care of itself.

People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians.

Our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff, like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand or empowering passionate employees and customers, will happen on its own.

When we began Starbucks, what I wanted to try to do was to create a set of values, guiding principles, and culture.

The American culture promotes personal responsibility, the dignity of work, the value of education, the merit of service, devotion to a purpose greater than self, and at the foundation, the pre-eminence of family.

In England you’re skewered on the altar of pop culture if you become pretentious.

If you decide to move to another country and to live within its laws you don’t express your disregard for the essence of the culture. It’s a form of aggression.