Wisdom in fragments

Entrepreneurs are people who by nature are optimists, who can tolerate risk and who have huge curiosity.

CEO of Apple Computer Company during the 1980s and 1990s

Kodak had been living in linear-time, something which is intuitive to most of us, where we think in days, weeks, months, years… The world had already started to shift when people like Steve Jobs started to take-advantage of the fact that you could connect the dots.

CEO of Apple Computer Company during the 1980s and 1990s

Here was Steve Jobs and Bill Gates- two young guys, under the age of 30, talking about their noble cause of empowering knowledge workers with tools for the mind, making them incredibly productive, and helping them to change the way things were done in our world; creating entirely new industries in the process.

CEO of Apple Computer Company during the 1980s and 1990s

To scale? you have the stars aligned- timing is everything.

CEO of Apple Computer Company during the 1980s and 1990s

Entrepreneurship means the unrelenting belief that there has to be a better way.

CEO of Apple Computer Company during the 1980s and 1990s

It's almost like we have the left eye covering itself up and saying, 'nothing to see here, nothing to do with Islam', and the right eye bursting a blood vessel saying, 'it's all Islam, it's all Muslims', and Islamists saying that the divine inspiration for them is from above.

The question I always ask them is '…what has our foreign policy got to do with Muslims travelling thousands of miles to go and kill other Muslims in Iraq and Syria?'

Salman Abedi, Khalid Masood, Khuram Butt, all of these people and the people in ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab… We tend to think sometimes that they are extremism. But the reality is they didn't breed extremism. Islamist extremism bred them.

Extremism is the desire to enforce illiberal views which are in a dichotomy to the liberal values that we all adhere to in a Liberal secular democracy; and you can have non-violent or violent extremism.

Doing something which has a social purpose gives you the motivation to overcome the hurdles and obstacles that you will meet along the way. It gives you that inner strength when you're doing something and you know it's making a massive difference.

True grit is that rare strength and resilience to dust yourself off, look at what went wrong, refine your proposition and plough on. Always be prepared to adapt: an open mind is everything – but stay focused on your end game.

We all have obstacles we think can't be overcome, but if our dream is great enough, and we work hard enough, the world is ours for the taking.

Entrepreneurship is about taking risks and having the audacity to commit and persevere through all the obstacles and hurdles we have to overcome.

Freedom without struggle is an illusion. I love problems. How we deal with problems defines who we are and what values we stand for.

Chinese Artist & Dissident; Prominent Human Rights Activist and Political Critic

Art is necessary for the human mind. Art is about our dreams, fears, and imagination. Art is about everything outside of the system. It is a death sentence for art when it is within the system.

Chinese Artist & Dissident; Prominent Human Rights Activist and Political Critic

Power is seized with the gun and maintained with the pen. Controlling public opinion through propaganda and misinformation is the most critical task of an authoritarian power.

Chinese Artist & Dissident; Prominent Human Rights Activist and Political Critic