“The biggest of all perhaps is how life began. We still don't know how life started from a soup of chemicals – how molecules assembled, replicated, and managed to survive and evolve into incredibly complex life forms. We also don't know how likely this was, and if we ever able to answer that, it will give us a better idea of whether we're alone in the universe.”— Venki Ramakrishnan
The quote archive
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
Abraham Maslow pointed out in the 1950s that flow is essentially what redeems the suffering of life. It's the psychological reward for mastery and without it, hard work can lead to burnout.
— Steven KotlerAuthor & Researcher on Flow State & Human Peak Performance
Firms like McKinsey are self-reporting that their people are 5x more productive in-flow than out of flow… 500% more productive. That means you can work Monday in-flow and take the rest of the week off – and you'd still get as much done as your peers.
— Steven KotlerAuthor & Researcher on Flow State & Human Peak Performance
Anyone worth following in peak performance will tell you that 90% of human performance is mental. The understanding of that mental aspect of the game is brand-new – perhaps 10-20 years old.
— Steven KotlerAuthor & Researcher on Flow State & Human Peak Performance
If you're not an action sport athlete, and you spend all your time chasing action sport athletes around mountains and across oceans, you're going to break things… I broke 82 bones and realized that if I didn't take my obsession beyond action sports that I would kill myself.
— Steven KotlerAuthor & Researcher on Flow State & Human Peak Performance
The digital world has democratized content – it's now available on every platform all the time – and we're going to see a whole raft of new stars, because talent can be rewarded.
— Siddharth Roy KapurIndian Film Producer & Head of Walt Disney Company India
Those three hours in a movie theatre gave people a chance to forget their woes and become one with their hero or heroine on screen. Cinema formed a means of escapism for people, from what they had to go through in their daily lives.
— Siddharth Roy KapurIndian Film Producer & Head of Walt Disney Company India
You can have many great actors but you have very few who really become movie stars. It is that indefinable quality of someone who becomes iconic that people want to come and watch regardless of the type of film they're in.
— Siddharth Roy KapurIndian Film Producer & Head of Walt Disney Company India
To make a great movie, you cannot set out to make a great movie! Great films are authentic, they capture the zeitgeist of a time and place in an entertaining and engaging way. Great cinema becomes something that reflects the mood of the time.
— Siddharth Roy KapurIndian Film Producer & Head of Walt Disney Company India
There's 6,000 times more energy hitting the surface of the Earth than we consume as a species. The poorest countries in the world are also the sunniest, which is a powerful asset.
— Peter DiamandisFounder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University
We're heading to a world where we can eliminate disease, increase our intelligence, and access all the food, healthcare, energy and education we could desire.
— Peter DiamandisFounder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University
It's the convergence of these technologies that creates waves on top of waves of capability, which will change our world – every industry, our economy, our government, our health, our families… everything is beginning to change.
— Peter DiamandisFounder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University
As humans, we've evolved in a world where the pace of change was slow. Our minds are not structured for the pace of rapid change that we're seeing and, increasingly, will experience. One way that we deal with the accelerating rate of change is by sort of riding on top of that tsunami of change rather than being crushed by it.
— Peter DiamandisFounder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University
We're moving towards a world of increasing abundance. The poorest and wealthiest can access the same information because of Google; the same information Larry Page has! That same democratisation and demonetisation will occur in other critically important areas of our life.
— Peter DiamandisFounder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University
This is a really exciting time for human space exploration, we have a lot to be hopeful about – and we have a whole bunch of private companies who have very credible strategies and vehicles. Like in so many other industries, the government has played a key role in kickstarting things – but to realise the full potential of this industry (space) we'll need private industry to get involved seriously; and we're just at the beginning of that journey.
— Mike MassiminoAstronaut and educator who conducted spacewalks on the Hubble Space Telescope
Seeing the Earth framed through the shuttle's small windows versus seeing it from outside was like the difference between looking at fish in an aquarium versus scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef… I was really out there, floating in it, swimming in it. I felt like a real spaceman…
— Mike MassiminoAstronaut and educator who conducted spacewalks on the Hubble Space Telescope
Seeing the earth from space was just breathtaking – I cannot imagine anywhere being more beautiful, we're living on an absolute paradise. Seeing our planet from that vantage point also changed my perspective on the concept of home. I used to think of myself as a New Yorker, as an America, but now? I'm a citizen of earth first and still all those things. Now, when I think of home, I think of the earth.
— Mike MassiminoAstronaut and educator who conducted spacewalks on the Hubble Space Telescope