“Opportunities come, sometimes very subtly, gently floating by. The typical response is, 'Yeah, cheers mate,' and back to Middlesbrough you go. But if your antenna is up — if you're someone who listens, runs with things, and grabs hold of opportunities — they can lead somewhere.”— Will Butler-Adams
The quote archive
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
Society feels broken because society is broken. When the most powerful nations in the world are spending billions of dollars on ways to kill each-other, and a fraction of those resources on ways to heal each other, we're broken.
— Marianne WilliamsonAuthor of "A Return to Love" & Spiritual Activist
Our world is the projection of our collective insanity, and run by world-leaders who are professional thugs, gangsters and mobsters.
— Deepak ChopraWellness Entrepreneur & Author Promoting Mind-Body Medicine and Spirituality
I don't think there is anything about putting your country first that requires you to turn your back on the rest of the world. If anything, the opposite is true.
— Melinda GatesCo-Founder of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Health Advocate
Many of us think that you should only believe things that are true, not just things that rally your coalition, sect, or tribe. That belief is by no means universal, but it is a gift of the enlightenment.
— Steven PinkerCognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature
There's no question that Facebook could have done much, much more in the last few years to address the problem. I don't think we can inoculate people against crazy ideas, they will always have takers- but we can certainly improve the way that platforms like Facebook operate because they don't have any incentive at the moment to restrict the spread of harmful content.
— Niall FergusonBritish historian and author specializing in financial and military history
We mustn't focus exclusively on this threat, and it tends to be the case that the global elite does. I was at Davos in January 2020 and climate change was the agenda – and the pandemic had already begun! It was quite difficult to persuade people that there might be a nearer-term threat facing us than climate change.
— Niall FergusonBritish historian and author specializing in financial and military history
Politics and celebrity culture have always been deeply entwined. What happens in any society, country by country, is that we go through waves of celebrity focused and political focus. There's always been a blurring of the lines when it comes to the worlds of entertainment and politics.
— Perez HiltonCelebrity gossip blogger and media personality known for celebrity news website
The most vivid character of our time has been the enslavement of society to this profiteering system.
— Ai WeiweiChinese 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.
— Ai WeiweiChinese Artist & Dissident; Prominent Human Rights Activist and Political Critic
The strongest characteristic of art is that it belongs to the individual. Art is an expression of individualism and the opposite of oppressive dogma.
— Ai WeiweiChinese Artist & Dissident; Prominent Human Rights Activist and Political Critic
What politics couldn't say and left silent, fiction could tell. Literature takes us out of our comfort zones and pushes us to see the issues from various angles. Fiction is an intellectual exercise.
— Elif ShafakTurkish-British novelist and author of "The Forty Rules of Love
The artificiality and unsustainability comes in when loans are made to customers who cannot repay those loans, and without sufficient regulatory control.
— Professor Wim NaudéEconomics professor specializing in entrepreneurship, innovation, and development in Africa
Consider for instance that the bulk of the world's foreign exchange reserves – trillions of dollars – are held by developing economies, and that the US runs a current account and budget deficit of astronomical proportions.
— Professor Wim NaudéEconomics professor specializing in entrepreneurship, innovation, and development in Africa
The essence of the evolving global economic system is that all countries are dependent on one another in some way, and this includes finance. Emerging and developing countries are dependent on capital inflows from developed regions. But developed regions are also dependent on funds from the developing world!
— Professor Wim NaudéEconomics professor specializing in entrepreneurship, innovation, and development in Africa
We are now living with a great deal of uncertainty, which will increase. As a society, though, we have to be prepared for threats we cannot conceive, we must build resilience not just in developed countries, but particularly in conflict areas.
— Kristiina RintakoskiUnknown.
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 RintakoskiUnknown.