“You are all so smart… and this was so bad… how could your discipline have not seen it coming? Implicit in the Queen's question was the assertion that economists don't get out enough and talk to people in the wider economy.”

— Glenn Hubbard

Dean of Columbia Business School & Economic Policy Advisor

The quote archive

Wisdom in fragments

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

In reality, you're rarely (if ever) completely helpless, you allow yourself to be helpless. You need to take ownership of a situation, break it down into bitesize chunks and plan accordingly.

— Chris Hadfield

Canadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander

Having a plan, feeling confident and being competent are the greatest antidotes to fear. If you're just trying to deal with the unknown by crossing your fingers and hoping, you will be utterly helpless when a situation finally manifests.

— Chris Hadfield

Canadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander

99.9% of the time, you are not in a burning building- and that is precisely the time to think about what you would do in that 0.1% of time when it is on fire.

— Chris Hadfield

Canadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander

Most every decision that your team will make is independent of you as a leader. If those individuals and teams don't know what that end-game truly looks like, the odds of them making the right decision at any moment in time diminishes.

— Chris Hadfield

Canadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander

We are facing a global catastrophe, one which should be a bigger motivator for us to come-together around a common cause than even World War II. Climate scientists tell us we're facing an existential crisis, and unless we get emissions under control in the next decade, that climate change will be irreversible.

— Kumi Naidoo

Environmental activist & former Executive Director of Greenpeace International

There has been a pathetic failure of governments to invest in educating people about the rights that they hold and enjoy; I suspect because if people knew their rights, they would claim them and put the governments of the world under pressure.

— Kumi Naidoo

Environmental activist & former Executive Director of Greenpeace International

According to Global Witness, 4 environmental activists are killed somewhere in the world each week, predominantly in Latin America but also in Africa and Asia. These are individuals doing everything from defending water, land and forests to the rights of indigenous communities.

— Kumi Naidoo

Environmental activist & former Executive Director of Greenpeace International

The sad reality is that if we tried to pass that declaration today, the UN General Assembly would fail to do so. Firstly, we don't have someone like Eleanor Roosevelt as an advocate for human rights, and where previously the US played a leadership role, Trump would no doubt block virtually every human rights pillar associated with the declaration.

— Kumi Naidoo

Environmental activist & former Executive Director of Greenpeace International

We have made money, capital, materialism and consumption into our God, it's a disease – you could call it affluenza. It is perhaps because of this context that humanity has lost its way, and the consideration of human rights has been subordinated to the interests of a handful of powerful people who sit at the top of the pyramid.

— Kumi Naidoo

Environmental activist & former Executive Director of Greenpeace International

You have to be resilient and you have to find the right investors. Surround yourself with amazing investors who are experts.

— José Neves