“When social distrust mounts- when people feel like the game is rigged against them- they are especially vulnerable to demagogues who come along and want them to channel their rage, anxiety and distrust toward scapegoats.”
— Robert Reich
Labor Secretary & Economist; Leading Voice on Inequality

The quote archive

Society

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

If you have a national or multinational brand, your customers are as diverse as the human population. If you're smart, you realise that you need people in your business who can relate to all those different kinds of people. This is actually one of the smartest supports for diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

— Daniel Goleman

Psychologist who popularized the concept of emotional intelligence

Research tells us that if you have a friend- as a child- who belongs to a group that your own group doesn't get along with, you will never have a bias against that group as an adult.

— Daniel Goleman

Psychologist who popularized the concept of emotional intelligence

Our brain was designed for survival and was developed in the 99.9% of human history that occurred before culture and civilisation. As a result, there are situations in our lives today where the brain doesn't work so-well. We call this an emotional hijack.

— Daniel Goleman

Psychologist who popularized the concept of emotional intelligence

I want Gymshark to be the brand that unites the conditioning community… that brings fitness into the reach of more people… gives people the opportunity to work on themselves physically and mentally. I wasn't very good at school. I got in the gym and then I was good at school because I applied the principles I learned in the gym to my general life. I want more people to have that experience.

— Ben Francis

Founder and CEO of Gymshark, fitness apparel company

Even if we could live to 1000 years, life would still be too short for many of us. I'm 51, that went in a blink of an eye. I don't think finding purpose in our lives will be an issue.... Longer life gives us a more purposeful life.

— David Sinclair

Longevity researcher & Harvard Medical School professor studying aging and lifespan extension

We have the tendency to follow those who are comparable to us. It reduces uncertainty and provides us with an extremely effective shortcut into deciding how to best behave in a world that has become overloaded with information and stimulus. We need shortcuts!

— Robert Cialdini

Influence & Persuasion Expert; Author of "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

We all inhabit distinctive inner universes. We all see and experience the world in a slightly different way. There are some extremely viral examples such as the dress which people perceived as being different colours – these things go viral and get popular because they reveal something that is essentially true but often hidden- that people can be exposed to the same image or be in the same place and be having very different experiences.

— Anil Seth

Neuroscientist & leading researcher on consciousness and perception

Distrust in government is very dangerous – what follows is the ability for authoritarian and totalitarian forms of government to take control, and that doesn't do anybody, any good.

— Beth Simone Noveck

Chief Innovation Officer of the White House & Open Government Advocate

Most people do not realise what will happen when they cross the divide- they've already accepted a story about who's on the other side, and have already decided that the other is frightening, delusional and dangerous. In truth, we are all confused. This era is nothing if not confusing. We all see some things with clarity, we all see some things upside down, and we all have blind-spots.

— Bret Weinstein

Evolutionary biologist and podcaster known for critical COVID-19 vaccine commentary

Fundamentally, we must slow-down the process of change. We should recognise that most change is not progress- and therefore, it is in our interests to slow down without interfering too much with actual solution making.

— Bret Weinstein

Evolutionary biologist and podcaster known for critical COVID-19 vaccine commentary

We have layer upon layer of novelty, and today we are in an era of hyper-novelty. The rate of change of the novelty we face is so fast that it has outstripped our evolutionary capacity to keep up.

— Bret Weinstein

Evolutionary biologist and podcaster known for critical COVID-19 vaccine commentary

For me- I think we're all here to uplift the human condition, making lives better for ourselves and others.

— Noor ul Owase Jeelani

Our economic measures aren't wrong, they're incomplete. Smith noted that a successful economic system is one where everyone who participates can flourish. That's not about equality of outcome, but about the fact that everyone has the ability to flourish, equality of opportunity.

— Glenn Hubbard

Dean of Columbia Business School & Economic Policy Advisor

If Smith were alive today, he'd say that in addition to the openness and competition and all the wealth we are creating, we need a sense of mutual sympathy and empathy. We need to give people the ability to compete.

— Glenn Hubbard

Dean of Columbia Business School & Economic Policy Advisor

We don't trust human beings to do things without being audited, and we're now getting AI to do those very same things without the same checks and balances.

— Daniel Huttenlocher

Dean of Cornell University's Blavatnik School of Engineering

While people have been worried about AI being embedded in humanoid robots from the science fiction world, our lives have been shaped and influenced by AI which makes tens of billions of decisions each day about what we see, and how we communicate.

— Daniel Huttenlocher

Dean of Cornell University's Blavatnik School of Engineering