“These models depend entirely on government statistics. They automatically leave out many forms of illicit money such as drug trading, human trafficking, some forms of trade mispricing and so forth. That is why we feel our estimates are very conservative.”— Raymond Baker
The quote archive
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
Rationality applies whether you believe in it or not. One idea follows from another – or it doesn't – and if you want some of your beliefs to lead to other beliefs, you have no choice but to be rational. We're committed to it by the very act of discussing, arguing, debating, persuading and convincing.
— Steven PinkerCognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature
Those cycles don't exist – that's not what history is like. Disasters keep coming along at random intervals, they are not normally distributed... That's hard for our brains to deal with… we don't like the idea that history is just a lot of random shocks without any predictable features.
— Niall FergusonBritish historian and author specializing in financial and military history
The story of modernity is a story of scientific advance – but in reality, with every step forward, we're taking half a step backward in terms of making ourselves more fragile.
— Niall FergusonBritish historian and author specializing in financial and military history
Art, for him, is a crucial means for turning thinking into doing in the world.
— Olafur EliassonIcelandic-Danish artist known for immersive light and weather installations
Creation, whatever form it takes, must improve the lives of as many people as possible.
— Philippe StarckRenowned French Industrial Designer & Architect Known for Innovative Product Design
An object must be useful before being beautiful.
— Philippe StarckRenowned French Industrial Designer & Architect Known for Innovative Product Design
Subversive, ethical, ecological, political, humorous… this is how I see my duty as a designer.
— Philippe StarckRenowned French Industrial Designer & Architect Known for Innovative Product Design
No one has to be a genius, but everyone has to participate.
— Philippe StarckRenowned French Industrial Designer & Architect Known for Innovative Product Design
My hands have been known mostly for the leather gloves that I've used as an instrument to punish opposing fighters. Outside the ring, though, I want my legacy to be the man with bare hands that offered kindness and hope to those in need.
— Manny PacquiaoWorld Champion Boxer & Philippine Senator
There are really no defeats in life, just opportunities to become better, stronger.
— Manny PacquiaoWorld Champion Boxer & Philippine Senator
It's become synonymous with clothing but ultimately fashion is anything popular in a culture at any given time.
— Claudia SchifferSupermodel and fashion icon of the 1990s
The inexpressible depth of music... easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all of the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain.
— Hans ZimmerAcclaimed film composer known for scores like The Lion King and Inception
Music expresses only the quintessence of life and of its events, never these themselves.
— Hans ZimmerAcclaimed film composer known for scores like The Lion King and Inception
We scrutinise a photograph with a sense that we are scrutinising the actual objects themselves, although they are distanced from us in time and space.
— David BaileyPioneering British fashion photographer who revolutionized 1960s portrait photography
Images signify- mainly- something 'out there' in space and time that they have to make comprehensible to us as abstractions.
— David BaileyPioneering British fashion photographer who revolutionized 1960s portrait photography
Photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.
— David BaileyPioneering British fashion photographer who revolutionized 1960s portrait photography