Dehumanizing the victim through the internet has enabled people to commit crimes and not worry about their conscience.
— Frank AbagnaleNotorious con artist and impostor who inspired the film "Catch Me If You Can
“Almost all of the processes we use today were designed in the twentieth century, with the old mindset of command and control. Forms and data such as immigration, customs, starting a company, land records, birth certificates, death certificates, police reports, court cases- all these processes, designed in the twentieth century, are now obsolete. You have to redesign your processes to meet the needs of the twenty first century, and the web.”— Dr. Sam Pitroda
Telecom Pioneer & Advisor to Indian Government on Technology Policy
The quote archive
Wisdom in fragments
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
The vast majority of fraudsters, and criminals get caught not because of good police work, but because they continue doing the same thing over and over again, until someone notices.
— Frank AbagnaleNotorious con artist and impostor who inspired the film "Catch Me If You Can
Criminals are not looking for challenges, but opportunities. Hackers don't cause breaches, they wait for doors to open; and we're making it so easy for people to steal from us that we're creating unlimited doors.
— Frank AbagnaleNotorious con artist and impostor who inspired the film "Catch Me If You Can
We live in a very unethical society. We don't teach ethics at home, schools or university. As a consequence most businesses don't have a code of ethics or conduct.
— Frank AbagnaleNotorious con artist and impostor who inspired the film "Catch Me If You Can
The vast majority of people- if they can benefit from something or make some money, will look the other way. It's personal greed, without thought about the consequences.
— Frank AbagnaleNotorious con artist and impostor who inspired the film "Catch Me If You Can
I want every mother in the world, from Baghdad to New York to be able to guarantee the same strength and health to her child; to give that child the tools to control their happiness and health, and to have the power to live well.
— Wim HofExtreme athlete known for ice exposure & breathing technique methods
Our culture is one of compensation, it's bullshit. We have so many cars, so many houses and so much sex, we lose track of who we are. We need to get back to the core. Through removing stimulation, we've disconnected ourselves from nature, from our innate capacities, and we have to reawaken ourselves.
— Wim HofExtreme athlete known for ice exposure & breathing technique methods
I'm a school drop-out that is now teaching professors and doctors around the world; all because of a naïve woman's wish for her child to live.
— Wim HofExtreme athlete known for ice exposure & breathing technique methods
By consciously and regularly going into the cold- I've learned how to tap into this primordial part of the brain; an area we've lost access to because of our destimulative behaviour. We need to get out into the cold, into the heat, and allow our brain to reconnect to these lost areas which simply are not activated or developed in our daily lives.
— Wim HofExtreme athlete known for ice exposure & breathing technique methods
Within each of us is a deep, complex network of capillaries, veins and arteries which extend a distance equivalent to more than 3 times the circumference of the Earth, and because our body has lost its conditioning to nature, our hearts have to pump 20-30 times a minute more than if we regularly exposed our body to cold water.
— Wim HofExtreme athlete known for ice exposure & breathing technique methods
We come from mammals, we are mammals… we're just mammals that wear clothes. We're destimulated – we don't feel the cold, the heat, everything in our environment – even though our physiology is built for it. Our vascular system responds naturally to temperature changes by dilating and contracting our muscles; but we've allowed them to lose this fitness, to lose their conditioning – and so our hearts compensate.
— Wim HofExtreme athlete known for ice exposure & breathing technique methods
It is precisely because of all those years of anticipating and designing for failure that they are alive today.
— Chris HadfieldCanadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander
Going around the world thousands of times presents you with the depth, fragility, strength and richness of Earth; and gives you a sense of what 4.5 billion years actually means. I travelled with our Earth as it crossed the Solar System and watched as Winter and Summer swapped- it was like watching the world take one of 4.5 billion breaths.
— Chris HadfieldCanadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander
Seeing the Earth from space gives you an unfiltered understanding of it. Until you see the Earth from this vantage point, everything you knew about the planet was based on something that someone else had told you – based on their own filtered understanding and bias.
— Chris HadfieldCanadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander
Most every decision that your team will make is independent of you as a leader. Once in a while, they may update you or ask you a question, but the vast majority of decisions are made either individually, or inside teams- and if those individuals and teams don't know what that end-game truly looks like, the odds of them making the right decision at any moment in time diminishes.
— Chris HadfieldCanadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander
99.9% of the time, you are not in a burning building- and that is precisely the time to think about what you would do in that 0.1% of time when it is on fire. A lack of information and preparedness in an emergency or crisis can be the difference between carrying yourself through, and sometimes, catastrophic outcomes.
— Chris HadfieldCanadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander