We need to accept that we won't always make the right decisions that we'll screw up royally sometimes - understanding that failure is not the opposite of success it's part of success.

Ultimately all human activities have as their goal the realization of happiness. Why then have we ended up producing the opposite result? Could the underlying cause be our failure to correctly understand the true nature of happiness?

The Bush Administration's failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men kindness and generosity openness honesty understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest sharpness greed acquisitiveness meanness egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.

No student of Chinese history can say that the Chinese are incapable of religious experience even when judged by the standards of medieval Europe or pious India.

You're working on being a father so that is something that when you experience it you'll understand the profundity of wanting to protect something dear to you.

The underlying message of the Lancet article is that if you want to understand aggressive behaviour in children look to the social and emotional environment in which they are growing up and the values they bring to the viewing experience.

I think a lot comes from having the experience of doing stand-up comedy. It allows you to figure out the psychology of an audience what things are funny and not.

The act of writing... is the act of trying to understand why my opinion is what it is. And ultimately I think that's the same experience the reader has when they pick up one of my books.

My father respected and admired my mother and was a person who was always standing by my side encouraging me to do more and believed in my capacity. So in that sense my own experience was very good in becoming an empowered woman. From early on I carried that strong message: 'You can do it.' So I never had any doubt that women can do a lot.

In my experience there is only one motivation and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it.

These are tough times and under this Tory-led government many people in Manchester are suffering and getting left behind. If elected I will use all my energy skills experience and knowledge to stand up for our communities and get things done for the better.

There are a lot of obstacles in the way of our understanding animal intelligence - not the least being that we can't even agree whether nonhuman species are conscious. We accept that chimps and dolphins experience awareness we like to think dogs and cats do. But what about mice and newts? What about a fly? Is anything going on there at all?

But beginners to the World Economics Forum have to understand there is no single Davos experience and there is no single Davos community either. There are numerous tribes who interact only at a minimal level.

Bottom up thinkers try to start from experience and move from experience to understanding. They don't start with certain general principles they think beforehand are likely to be true they just hope to find out what reality is like.

The American experience influenced my understanding of individuality basic human rights freedom of expression and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.