“In a peculiar way, failure can sometimes be simpler to grapple with. You can simply resist it, dismiss it with a defiant 'to hell with this, to hell with them', and return to square one. Conversely, success can be considerably more subtle and insidious.”
— Andrew McCarthy
Actor known for 1980s films like "St. Elmo's Fire

The quote archive

Wisdom in fragments

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

The EU needs reform. Countries have transferred jurisdiction over legislations to a centre that makes decisions in somewhat of a vacuum, featuring a European Parliament that cannot itself initiate legislation. We have a paradox therefore where national parliaments give certain powers to the centre, without being compensated through the creation of an essential federal sovereignty.

— Yanis Varoufakis

Greek Finance Minister during eurozone debt crisis negotiations

We were approaching the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society.

— Marshall McLuhan

Media Theorist Who Predicted the Digital Age & Global Communication

The last century has witnessed a radical transformation in the entire human environment, largely as a result of the impact of the mathematical and physical sciences upon technology.

— Lewis Mumford

Influential American historian, philosopher, and social critic of technology and urbanism

The Internet is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies, it's becoming our typewriter and our printing press, our map and our clock, our calculator and our telephone, our post office and our library, our radio and our TV.

— Nicholas Carr

Technology writer & author of "The Shallows" and "The Big Switch

Electronic systems change not only what we know, but how we know it.

— Richard Posner

Influential Federal Judge & Law and Economics Scholar

We are in the epoch of simultaneity; we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and the far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed.

— Michel Foucault

Influential Philosopher of Power, Knowledge, and Discourse in Modern Society

Child labour is one of the worst violations of human rights, it's an affirmation that we don't respect the freedom and dignity of children in our society.

— Kailash Satyarthi

Nobel Peace Prize Winner & Child Rights Activist Against Child Labor

In our market-economy, consumers have the power. I also believe that almost every consumer has an element of compassion in herself or himself.

— Kailash Satyarthi

Nobel Peace Prize Winner & Child Rights Activist Against Child Labor

In a world where we have 168 million full-time child labourers, we have just over 200 million adults who are jobless. Studies have shown empirically that there is a parallel between child labour and adult unemployment.

— Kailash Satyarthi

Nobel Peace Prize Winner & Child Rights Activist Against Child Labor

We have come to consider children as either being exploited or subject to charity; we hardly ever consider them as the equal human beings they are, born with certain inalienable rights.

— Kailash Satyarthi

Nobel Peace Prize Winner & Child Rights Activist Against Child Labor

Children are bought and sold like animals, sometimes at a lower price than animals. 168 million children work as child labourers, more than 200 million children who should be in education are not at school.

— Kailash Satyarthi

Nobel Peace Prize Winner & Child Rights Activist Against Child Labor

It's the convergence of technologies at any given time that allow individuals to achieve the things which simply were not possible before. Your smartphone can be used to diagnose diseases for example – every disease has a pattern.

— Naveen Jain

Entrepreneur & Founder of Moon Express, Infosys Technologies Co-Founder

You may become rich, engage in philanthropy and help a million people but the only way you can help a billion people is by building a profitable business. If you can't make a profit, you can't help a billion people – so go make a profit!

— Naveen Jain

Entrepreneur & Founder of Moon Express, Infosys Technologies Co-Founder

Most people think of entrepreneurs as someone who starts a company, but to me? Entrepreneurship is really about problem solving. You can be an entrepreneur in a company, in a family or in your own venture. The bottom line? If you can solve a problem – you're an entrepreneur.

— Naveen Jain

Entrepreneur & Founder of Moon Express, Infosys Technologies Co-Founder

The first trillionaires are going to be created through space exploration. Imagine the mineral wealth on planet Earth, and then realise that Earth is just a tiny blue dot in our whole galaxy… which is just one galaxy in a universe, which could be part of many universes. Everything we think is rare on Earth, is abundant in space.

— Naveen Jain

Entrepreneur & Founder of Moon Express, Infosys Technologies Co-Founder

One of the defining experiences I had with CNET, a digital media company where I was the fourth employee back in the dawn of the internet, was recognizing the power of asking for help.

— Matthew W. Barzun

U.S. Ambassador to Sweden, France, and the United Kingdom