Wisdom in fragments

The people in the advanced countries now face a choice: we can express justified horror, or we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes. If we refuse to do the latter, we will be contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead.

Renowned Linguist & Political Activist, Critic of US Foreign Policy

Even though we still have approximately twenty thousand hydrogen bombs in the arsenals of the United States and Russia (many of them ready to use at a moment's notice) the two risks that most experts think are the greatest and most likely are the risks of a single bomb being used by a terrorist group or the risk of a regional war involving dozens of weapons.

Nuclear weapons expert and president of the Ploughshares Fund.

Nuclear weapons continue to be built for basically two reasons: power and prestige. In almost every case where a country has decided to acquire a nuclear weapon they have done it either for power—the power to protect their country from external threats or a desire to project their power in the region.

Nuclear weapons expert and president of the Ploughshares Fund.

By the time the bomb was completed, that kind of carnage had become common place in World War II and the atomic bomb was then seen as little more than a bigger firebomb—the kind that been used on Tokyo and Dresden.

Nuclear weapons expert and president of the Ploughshares Fund.

Nuclear weapons were invented out of fear. The United States was afraid that Hitler was developing an atomic weapon, and they had to get one to deter him from ever using it. When the U.S. Manhattan Project that built the bomb began, no-one ever thought we would use a weapon like this; it was considered beyond the pale—a weapon that would indiscriminately kill hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

Nuclear weapons expert and president of the Ploughshares Fund.

income inequality, as a measure of relative depravation, was consistently associated with violent crimes.

rates of homicides and violent crime were strongly associated with income inequality. In addition, unemployment was found to be associated with income inequality.

inequality [was] a better predictor of violence than economic development… Increasing inequality was found to predispose more to lethal violence

poverty seems to be an aggravating factor in all types of violence

About ten years, a guy told me about his father's death. He had to send twenty seven people on different buses and trains to inform relatives all over the country because phones didn't work. When his mother died, there were STD/PCO facilities in most-all villages. He had to only make twenty seven calls, and they were all informed in under half an hour.

Telecom Pioneer & Advisor to Indian Government on Technology Policy

Because of connectivity, India has increased mobility. People from Orissa work in Gujarat, people from Gujarat can start businesses elsewhere. Because of telecommunications, a farmer can now get information on seeds and fertilisers.

Telecom Pioneer & Advisor to Indian Government on Technology Policy

Telecommunications has not only connected India, but it has also given India global recognition and a new respect for Indian talent. It has created our own multinationals, and created a huge amount of foreign exchange reserves.

Telecom Pioneer & Advisor to Indian Government on Technology Policy

When I entered the telecom scene in India, in the early nineteen eighties, we had two million telephones for seven hundred and fifty million people. It used to take fifteen years to get a telephone connection. In a very short space of time, just twenty five years, we have seven hundred and fifty million telephones.

Telecom Pioneer & Advisor to Indian Government on Technology Policy

Life is a masterpiece of complexity. We will never understand, in a near future, the extraordinary complexity of the simplest forms of life.

Plant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.

Human intelligence is, for want of a better phrase, a degree of magnitude greater than the intelligence of a Paramecium or, better, of a Chlamydomonas; but the difference is just quantitative and not qualitative.

Plant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.

In biology we are still in a kind of Ptolemaic era with man considering himself the centre of the universe.

Plant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.