“Our knowledge of the world is always fragmentary and incomplete and our explanations of how the world works have therefore to be considered as provisional. This means we have to accept that sometimes we will turn out afterwards to have been wrong.”

— Professor Sir David Omand

Former UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator & National Security Adviser

The quote archive

Wisdom in fragments

A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.

I think that inequality within societies and between regions has become a key cause for conflict, exacerbated by rapid information dissemination, as people are (now) more aware of inequalities.

— Kristiina Rintakoski

Unknown.

Concepts like democracy and human rights will always remain fairly abstract if you cannot feed your family. It is therefore important to ensure that job creation, and protecting livelihoods occurs early on in the process.

— Kristiina Rintakoski

Unknown.

The fundamental starting point is to acknowledge that outside actors can rarely create peace, local ownership in resolving the conflicts is vital. You cannot import peace, it is created within society.

— Kristiina Rintakoski

Unknown.

Over 70% of the labour force in sub-Saharan Africa is involved in agriculture. This means the sector forms a lynch-pin of society.

— Susan Payne

Unknown.

Over half the sub-Saharan African population is under 18 years old, versus Latin America, where over half the population is under 25 years old and Asia, where it is under 35 years old. These EM populations are young, expansive and dynamic.

— Susan Payne

Unknown.

Africa is an enormous continent, larger than the US, China and Europe combined. It represents 20% of the global land mass, and only 10% of the world's population. It offers an un-crowded space of opportunities including minerals, natural resources, water and agriculture.

— Susan Payne

Unknown.

Globally, we have neglected this topic [agriculture] for decades. We have, worldwide, over a billion undernourished people. Food prices have risen over the past few years, with our own research showing these should accelerate up from 2010.

— Susan Payne

Unknown.

If stem cells prove safe for use in the brain, you might use them to repair brain damage, but you might use them to increase or enhance brain function.

— John Harris

No industry and indeed no activity at all whether commercial or not should act unethically, or immorally and so the relationship of bioethics, or ethics, to anything it studies is the relationship of authority.

— John Harris

If morality is the science of the good, ethics is the study of that science, and bioethics is the study of that science as it relates to biosphere.

— John Harris

Many people think the role of bioethics is to go and see what the scientists or doctors are doing and tell them to stop because they are acting, by hypothesis, unethically. However I often find when I go and see what the scientists are doing, they are doing wonderful things and I'm very inclined to say 'great guys, keep going!'

— John Harris

The role of the dollar rests on many other things, not just economics. There is a reason why the likes of Alfred Smith, and Karl Marx studied politics and not economics.

— Marc Chandler