Earlier this year, Amazon.com founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos spoke at a conference and when asked about the battles between the media and the rich and powerful, had so many quotable observations, we decided to use several of them as a Monday morning motivation on this day of the first of three U.S. Presidential debates.

“If you can’t tolerate critics, don’t do anything new or interesting.”

“As a public figure, the best defense to speech you don’t like about yourself as a public figure is to develop a thick skin. You can’t stop it.”

“Beautiful speech doesn’t need protection, it’s ugly speech that needs protection.”

“We have these cultural norms that allow people to say really ugly things. You don’t have to invite them to your dinner party, but you should let them say it.”

“(For half the population of the world in which we live), when they criticize their leader, there’s a good chance they’ll go to jail or worse. We live in this amazing democracy with amazing freedom of speech, and a presidential candidate should embrace that. They should say, I’m running for president of the most important country of the world, I expect to be scrutinized.”

(Advice for rich and powerful individuals who want to control what the media says about them.): “I would say (to them) go stand on a street corner and watch all the people walk by, and think about what they’re thinking about. I bet you none of those people are thinking about you.”

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