Jon Stewart Quotes

Yes, reason has been a part of organized religion, ever since two nudists took dietary advice from a talking snake.

Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.

I've been to Canada, and I've always gotten the impression that I could take the country over in about two days.

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.

You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: it wasn't that long ago that we were swept away by the Macarena.

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

Yes, the long war on Christianity. I pray that one day we may live in an America where Christians can worship freely! In broad daylight! Openly wearing the symbols of their religion... perhaps around their necks? And maybe -- dare I dream it? -- maybe one day there can be an openly Christian President. Or, perhaps, 43 of them. Consecutively.

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

If America leads a blessed life, then why did God put all of our oil under people who hate us?

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

If the events of September 11, 2001, have proven anything, it's that the terrorists can attack us, but they can't take away what makes us American -- our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that.

I was born with an adult head and a tiny body. Like a 'Peanuts' character.

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

Insomnia is my greatest inspiration.

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.

Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality.

By the way, when you finish the bottle of Crown Royal, you can still use the pouch to hold your broken dreams.

If everything is amplified, we hear nothing.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

Yesterday, the president met with a group he calls the coalition of the willing. Or, as the rest of the world calls them, Britain and Spain

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

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.

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]

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

When did fact checking and journalism go their separate ways?

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

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

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

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.

If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.

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

Why did the Articles [of Confederation] fail so completely? Most historians believe the founding fathers spent a great deal of their first constitutional convention drafting the delaration of independence and only realized on July 3rd the Articles were also due.

It's like hunting cows

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

Evil is relatively rare; ignorance is epidemic.

Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I figured this out. I know what's wrong with what we've done in Iraq. We've been following time as it goes forward. What a classic mistake. Linear time is so pre-9-11.

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

If your regime is not strong enough to handle a joke, then you have no regime.

No one is better at not beating America than England.

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

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.

If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more fucking time. But I would really settle for less fucking tragedy.” ~ Jon Stewart

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

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)

I feel your scorn, and I accept it.

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

If your world does not include enough access to different people, and their world does not include enough access to you, you are speaking from ignorance.

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

Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they man.

Race is there. You're tire of hearing about it? Imagine how fucking exhausting it is living it.

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

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.

In whose delusional mind is democracy made better by letting wealthier people control more of it?

THE HUMAN CONDITION The Daily Show reported recently that scientists in Japan had invented a robot that is capable of recognizing its own reflection in a mirror. "When the robot learns to hate what it sees," said Jon Stewart, "it will have achieved full humanity.

The Republican party is the party of nostalgia. It seeks to return America to a simpler, more innocent and moral past that never actually existed. The Democrats are utopians. They seek to create an America so fair and non-judgmental that life becomes an unbearable series of apologies. Together, the two parties function like giant down comforters, allowing a candidate to disappear into the enveloping softness, protecting them from exposure to the harsh weather of independent thought.

As an adolescent, Vonnegut made my life bearable.

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.

You're tired of hearing about it? (racism) Imagine how freaking tiring it must be living through it.

Campaigns and elections are the process in which democracy separates the willing from the able, and goes with the willing.

It is perhaps a sign of the strength of our republic that so few people feel the need to participate. That must be the reason.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Classroom Activities 1. Using felt and yarn, make a hand puppet of Clarence Thomas. Ta-da! You're Antonin Scalia!

A Trump was a demon who sometimes appeared to us in quasi-human form in order to fire us from jobs we never wanted in the first place.

Free time is death to the anxious, and thank goodness I don't have any of it right now.

You must now--before God, Jon Stewart, and whoever's sleeping next to you (even if these entities are one and the same)--make a solemn oath.

Each party has a platform--a pre-fixed menu of beliefs making up its worldview. The candidate can choose one of the two platforms, but remember: no substitutions. For example, do you support healthcare? Then you must also want a ban on assault weapons. Pro limited government? Congratulations, you are also anti-abortion. Luckily, all human opinion falls neatly into one of the two clearly defined camps. Thus, the two-party system elegantly represents the bi-chromatic rainbow that is American political thought.

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.

The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.

Stephen Colbert: Here’s the thing: You said to me and to many other people here years ago never to thank you, because we owe you nothing. Jon Stewart: [quietly] That’s right. Stephen Colbert: It’s one of the few times I’ve known you to be dead wrong… We owe you because we learned from you, by example, how to do a show with intention, with clarity. How to treat people with respect. You are infuriatingly good at your job, okay?

[Stump speeches] are to oratory what a stump is to a tree.

It has been eleven days, Stephen, eleven fucking days! Eleven! The presidency is supposed to age the president, not the public.

As heirs to a legacy more than two centuries old, it is understandable why present-day Americans would take their own democracy for granted. A president freely chosen from a wide-open field of two men every four years; a Congress with a 99% incumbency rate; a Supreme Court comprised of nine politically appointed judges whose only oversight is the icy scythe of Death -- all these reveal a system fully capable of maintaining itself. But our perfect democracy, which neither needs nor particularly wants voters, is a rarity. It is important to remember there still exist other forms of government in the world today, and that dozens of foreign countries still long for a democracy such as ours to be imposed on them.

I'm not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance.

Those fighting to be included in the ideal of equality are not divisive. Those fighting to keep those people out - are.

And this, this, is their genius. Conservatives are not looking to make education more rigorous and informative, or science more empirical or verifiable, or voting more representative, or the government more efficient or effective. They just want all those things to reinforce their partisan, ideological, conservative viewpoint.

The World Trade Center cross has become a Christian icon. It has been blessed by so-called holy men and presented as a reminder that their God, who couldn't be bothered to stop the terrorists or prevent 3,000 people from being killed in his name, cared only enough to bestow upon us some rubble that resembles a cross. [The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Comedy Central, 4 August 2011]

People that worry about where they think they're going next generally don't end up where they think they're going. I just worry about what I'm doing now and try to make it good. When you've got too much of a master plan, it's going to fail.

Newspapers abound, and though they have endured decades of decline in readership and influence, they can still form impressive piles if no one takes them out to the trash.

[Hearing] was distinct from listening, which could only be achieved when hearing was combined with giving a shit.

It has been said that life is a tragedy to those who think and a comedy to those who feel.

Apparently there’s a right and wrong answer in chemistry, whereas in psychology, you can say whatever you want as long as you write five pages,

Of course these minimum life requirements don't fully address what it means to be alive. For even beyond all the metabolic processes, there was also an intangible essence separating the living from the not. Call it a soul, or just a need we had. Every living thing possessed a certain energy or life-force that infused even the unicellular among us.

After a piece ran, a guy claimed I claimed I was from CNN. I never said that. But if you make a man comedically look like Hitler and it turns out that he is a retired lawyer with a lot of time on his hands, you’re going to get sued. That’s the lesson for today, children. STEVE

Bullshit is everywhere.” (...) Then there’s the more pernicious bullshit… It comes in three flavors: Making bad things sound good… “Patriot Act.” Because “Are You Scared Enough to Let Me Look at All Your Phone Records Act” doesn’t sell… Number two: hiding bad things under mountains of bullshit. “Hey, a handful of billionaires can’t buy our elections, right?” “Of course not. They can only pour unlimited, anonymous cash into a 501( c)( 4) if 50 percent is devoted to ‘issue education’”… And finally, my favorite: the bullshit of infinite possibility… “We cannot take action on climate change until everyone in the world agrees gay marriage vaccines won’t cause our children to marry goats who are coming for our guns. Until then, I say we teach the controversy.” So I say to you, friends: The best defense against bullshit is vigilance. So if you smell something, say something. ~Jon Stewart

We work together to get things done every damn day. Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals, or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do, often something they do not want to do. But they do it, impossible things every day that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make.

It’s very easy to figure out Trump’s ideology. He’s not racist and sexist to this incredible degree. He’s Trumpist. He views the world through the prism of, “How do they view Trump?” If you view Trump positively, you’re good people. “Putin, hey, he likes the Trump, I like the Putin.” That’s all he is. His doctrine is the Trump Doctrine. If another country is nice to him, he will be nice to that country. If the country thinks he’s an idiot, “Fuck them. That’s a pussy country. They don’t know shit about anything. That country changed its name from a Jewish name.

New Rule: If you're going to have a rally where hundreds of thousands of people show up, you may as well go ahead and make it about something. With all due respect to my friends Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, it seems that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you'd side with the sane and the reasonable--and not try to pretend the insanity is equally distributed in both parties. Keith Olbermann is right when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts; the other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance's sake, that the left is just as violent and cruel as the right, that unions are just as powerful as corporations, that reverse racism is just as damaging as racism. There's a difference between a mad man and a madman. Now, getting more than two hundred thousand people to come to a liberal rally is a great achievement that gave me hope, and what I really loved about it was that it was twice the size of the Glenn Beck crowd on the Mall in August--although it weight the same. But the message of the rally as I heard it was that if the media would just top giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan, and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side. Forgetting that Obama tried that, and found our there are no moderates on the other side. When Jon announced his rally, he said that the national conversation is "dominated" by people on the right who believe Obama's a socialist, and by people on the left who believe 9/11 was an inside job. But I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11 was an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama's socialist? All of them. McCain, Boehner, Cantor, Palin...all of them. It's now official Republican dogma, like "Tax cuts pay for themselves" and "Gay men just haven't met the right woman." As another example of both sides using overheated rhetoric, Jon cited the right equating Obama with Hitler, and the left calling Bush a war criminal. Except thinking Obama is like Hitler is utterly unfounded--but thinking Bush is a war criminal? That's the opinion of Major General Anthony Taguba, who headed the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib. Republicans keep staking out a position that is farther and farther right, and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle. Which now is not the middle anymore. That's the reason health-care reform is so watered down--it's Bob Dole's old plan from 1994. Same thing with cap and trade--it was the first President Bush's plan to deal with carbon emissions. Now the Republican plan for climate change is to claim it's a hoax. But it's not--I know because I've lived in L.A. since '83, and there's been a change in the city: I can see it now. All of us who live out here have had that experience: "Oh, look, there's a mountain there." Governments, led my liberal Democrats, passed laws that changed the air I breathe. For the better. I'm for them, and not the party that is plotting to abolish the EPA. I don't need to pretend both sides have a point here, and I don't care what left or right commentators say about it, I can only what climate scientists say about it. Two opposing sides don't necessarily have two compelling arguments. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on that mall in the capital, and he didn't say, "Remember, folks, those southern sheriffs with the fire hoses and the German shepherds, they have a point, too." No, he said, "I have a dream. They have a nightmare. This isn't Team Edward and Team Jacob." Liberals, like the ones on that field, must stand up and be counted, and not pretend we're as mean or greedy or shortsighted or just plain batshit at them. And if that's too polarizing for you, and you still want to reach across the aisle and hold hands and sing with someone on the right, try church.