Wisdom in fragments

Unless women have the chance to take up an active role in our economies and fulfil their potential, our ambitions for a fairer and more prosperous world simply won't be realised.

Wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair & Human rights lawyer

The 'confidence gap' begins to manifest itself in girls at an alarmingly young age. For example, a recent study on gender stereotypes and children's perception of brilliance revealed the worrying fact that girls start doubting their own intelligence and capabilities as early as age six.

Wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair & Human rights lawyer

Where decent jobs are scarce, women can achieve financial independence by becoming job creators rather than job seekers – providing, of course, that they have the right support and opportunities to do so.

Wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair & Human rights lawyer

Research shows that empowering women to gain financial independence generates lasting impact, with women typically investing 90% of their income back into their families. In addition to this, McKinsey estimates that if women and men were to play an identical role in labour markets across the world, an extra $28 trillion would be added to the global economy by 2025.

Wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair & Human rights lawyer

I believe that working towards women's economic empowerment at the global level is the single most important battle we will fight in our lifetime, and that's because harnessing the incredible talents and potential of women is not only the right thing to do – it will also create stronger economies and a fairer society for all.

Wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair & Human rights lawyer

If history has taught us anything, it's that women rarely win anything without a fight!

Wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair & Human rights lawyer

If something goes wrong – as a leader, you take ownership – you cannot blame anyone else. If you are in charge of a team, you absolutely have to take ownership when something goes wrong, it's your fault.

Former Navy SEAL Commander & Leadership Author

The greatest leaders have humility. A good leader is a humble leader. A good leader listens to people, gets other inputs, admits when they're wrong… and that boils down to humility; it's the single most important characteristic that I see in leaders.

Former Navy SEAL Commander & Leadership Author

War teaches you that there are many different types of people, good and bad, and you have to understand that good and evil co-exist, and it's up to you to calculate your way through the world, understanding where people are rooted.

Former Navy SEAL Commander & Leadership Author

If you want to see where human nature is most revealed, you have to look at human beings in their most stressful and painful scenarios. It is in those situations that you can learn how people behave and how you can behave.

Former Navy SEAL Commander & Leadership Author

When you fail, you take ownership of the failure, and then you assess what mistakes were made, what could be done differently, what better instructions you could have given, what better support you could have given, then you fix those problems, move on and try again, simple.

Former Navy SEAL Commander & Leadership Author

Fundamentally you build trust with people by giving them trust.

Former Navy SEAL Commander & Leadership Author

People suffer from the curse of knowledge, they don't know what they don't know! All of us have different starting points, different assumptions and a different knowledge base.

Curator of TED Talks & Author of "The Long Tail

Humans have this incredible ability; we understand the world around us, we can dream, we can share visions of the future and persuade each other- and ourselves- to improve. This is so deep in our biology.

Curator of TED Talks & Author of "The Long Tail

Our world needs a more reflective way of communicating, something which the media are not promoting. We need an antidote to the current shooting-from-the-hip, and outrage sparking emotive content that is causing mutual incomprehension, it's a tragedy.

Curator of TED Talks & Author of "The Long Tail

Screens are weapons of mass distraction, and as audiences we have to listen and give speakers a chance.

Curator of TED Talks & Author of "The Long Tail