Jon Stewart

“Often, no sooner would the mind begin to scale the heights of Mt. Knowledge than it would receive a frantic call from body base camp, demanding it return to oversee "Operation Masturbate.”

“The reason I don’t worry about society is, nineteen people knocked down two buildings and killed thousands. Hundreds of people ran into those buildings to save them. I’ll take those odds every f*cking day.”

“I feel your scorn, and I accept it.”

“As an adolescent, Vonnegut made my life bearable.”

“If I was to really get at the burr in my saddle, it’s not politics — and this is, I think, probably a horrible analogy — but I look at politicians as, they are doing what inherently they need to do to retain power. Their job is to consolidate power. When you go to the zoo and you see a monkey throwing poop, you go, ‘That’s what monkeys do, what are you gonna do?’ But what I wish the media would do more frequently is say, ‘Bad monkey.”

“To the people who are upset about their hard-earned tax money going to things they don’t like: welcome to the f*cking club. Reimburse me for the Iraq war and oil subsidies, and diaphragms are on me!”

“I’m not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance”

“1. Society needs laws. While anarchy can often turn a humdrum weekend into something unforgettable, eventually the mob must be kept from stealing the conch and killing Piggy. And while it would be nice if that "something" was simple human decency, anybody who has witnessed the "50% Off Wedding Dress Sale" at Filene's Basement knows we need a backup plan—preferably in writing. On the other hand, too many laws can result in outright tyranny, particularly if one of those laws is "Kneel before Zod." Somewhere between these two extremes lies the legislative sweet-spot that produces just the right amount of laws for a well-adjusted society—more than zero, less than fascism.”

“What would Jesus, or any human being who isn't an asshole, do?”

“Classroom Activities1. Using felt and yarn, make a hand puppet of Clarence Thomas. Ta-da! You're Antonin Scalia!”

“Parenthood is an amazing opportunity to be able to ruin someone from scratch.”

“You know what they say: If at first you don't succeed, f**k it.”

“In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America. Now, some have argued Columbus actually discovered the West Indies, or that Norsemen had discovered America centuries earlier, or that you really can't get credit for discovering a land already populated by indigenous people with a developed civilization. Those people are communists. Columbus discovered America.”

“The bias of the mainstream media is toward sensationalism, conflict, and laziness.”

“I thinking gay and straight people use the same putters, it's not a matter of putters but a matter of hole selection.”

“When did fact checking and journalism go their separate ways?”

“We owe Clint Eastwood a debt of thanks. Not only because it was truly a hilarious twelve minutes of improvised "awesome" in a week of scripted "blah". But because it advanced our understanding. This president has issues, and there are very legitimate debates about his policies and actions, and successes and or failures as president - I mean, tune in next week. But I could never wrap my head around why the world, and the president republicans describe, bears so little resemblance to the world and the president that I experience. And now I know why :There is a president Obama that only republicans can see”

“And try as I might, I am having difficulty giving a f**k.”

“You can use your idealism to further your aims, if you realize that nothing is Nirvana, nothing is perfect.”

“The internet is just a world passing notes around a classroom.”

“The problem with the Tea Party is they're all ignorant hillbillies who drink moonshine and ride around on mules. And they believe in stereotypes too.”

“It's great having Bruce Springsteen on my show. We have so much in common! We're both from New Jersey, just from different neighborhoods. Sort of like how Martin Luther King and Margaret Mitchell both came from Atlanta. But from different neighborhoods.”

“The more you delve into science, the more it appears to rely on faith.”

“The Westboro Baptist Church is no more a church than Church's Fried Chicken is a church.”

“No one is better at not beating America than England.”

“Being a superpower is like being a Santa Claus that everyone hates.”

“You wonder sometimes how our government puts on its pants in the morning.”

“As our larynxes descended, we were able to make sounds with our mouths in new and far more expressive ways. Verbal language soon overtook physical gesturing as the primary means of communication for all human beings except Italians. (Earth (The Book), p. 36)”

“What are you so mad about? That we still have a government? We still have “traffic lights.” We’re sorry. The government’s not perfect, but some people wish it was better, not gone.”

“It's not that the Democrats are playing checkers and the Republicans are playing chess. It's that the Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse's office because once again they glued their balls to their thighs.”

“It's funny. When we were alive we spent much of our time staring up at the cosmos and wondering what was out there. We were obsessed with the moon and whether we could one day visit it. The day we finally walked on it was celebrated worldwide as perhaps man's greatest achievement. But it was while we were there, gathering rocks from the moon's desolate landscape, that we looked up and caught a glimpse of just how incredible our own planet was. Its singular astonishing beauty. We called her Mother Earth. Because she gave birth to us, and then we sucked her dry.”

“Most world religions denounced war as a barbaric waste of human life. We treasured the teachings of these religions so dearly that we frequently had to wage war in order to impose them on other people.”

“We called her Mother Earth. Because she gave birth to us, and then we sucked her dry.”

“Pigmentation was a quick and convenient way of judging a person. One of us, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once proposed we instead judge people by the content of their character. He was shot.”

“Why would these English explorers search for these spices, yet never use them in their food? --7/14/09 interview with Peter Mancall, author of Fatal Journey”

“Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality.”

“I have some bad news. Bjork cannot be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her.”

“To have not shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak.”

“If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.”

“If everything is amplified, we hear nothing.”

“If you don't stick to your values when they're being tested, they're not values: they're hobbies.”

“We've come from the same history - 2000 years of persecution - we've just expressed our sufferings differently. Blacks developed the blues. Jews complained, we just never thought of putting it to music.”

“It's like hunting cows”

“If "con" is the opposite of pro, then isn't Congress the opposite of progress? Or did we just fucking blow your mind?!?”

“Here’s how bizarre the war is that we’re in in Iraq, and we should have known this right from the get-go: When we first went into Iraq, Germany didn’t want to go. Germany. The Michael Jordan of war took a pass.”

“Donald Rumsfeld. Love him or hate him, you've gotta admit: a lot of people hate him.”

“Thomas Jefferson once said: 'Of course the people don't want war. But the people can be brought to the bidding of their leader. All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for somehow a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.' I think that was Jefferson. Oh wait. That was Hermann Goering. Shoot."[Hosting the Peabody Awards for broadcasting excellence at the New York Waldorf-Astoria, June 6, 2006]”

“So, is there hope for a truly democratic Africa? Long answer: Only if continent-wide improvements in education, human rights and public health are coupled with an aggressive and far-sighted debt-relief program that breaks the cycle of subsistence farming and urban squalor. Short answer: No.”

“Cause if there's one thing Islamic terrorists don't have is....(seriously thinking about it)....%#@&!”

“Get there early because hope does not park your mother-fucking car.”