We're outnumbered by bacteria 1.3:1, we're slightly more bacteria than we are human. We're also stardust. We are also 60% water, and that water in our bodies is billions of years old; it's been the clouds, the bottom of the sea, waves, streams and everything in the cycle. At an atomic level, 98% of the hydrogen in our bodies came from the bigbang. We're incredibly ancient beings, perhaps we should see ourselves as aliens!

I argue that the ecosystem where idea pathogens originate from is the university; it takes intellectuals to come up with some of the most moronic ideas possible.

My primary intention was to truly 'see' my son – a sentiment that, I believe, resonates with most of us. We yearn for acknowledgment, for someone to truly hear us and see us for who we are. One of the greatest luxuries I discovered during our walk was the gift of time with an adult child.

I want to set an example for this generation of war reporters, and for my generation as a whole, that you don't have to rely on drugs or alcohol to cope with traumatic experiences.

My life's mission is to dismantle the notion of mental illness altogether. I detest it. It only serves to shame and stigmatise those with brain health challenges, which is utterly wrong.

I genuinely don't care about scrutiny – it's a zero on a scale of 1 to 10 for me. If the table goes cold, I'll walk out of the casino. I'm good… I've got my nest-egg… I'm happy. I do this every day because I like it and want to accomplish my goals.

Gender identity drives self-socialization. People think adults socialise their children, but children socialise themselves. We see the same process in the Great Apes. Young females imitate their mother – and copy the diet and tool techniques of their mothers much more reliably than the young males do.

We always think of every crisis as being somehow different and unique to us. That is human myopia. The reality is that the perennial pattern we see is universal and immemorial.

America has a class system, and it's becoming more rigid all the time. As inequality widens the ladder becomes so long that you have little hope of getting too far up it in your lifetime.

The Ancient Greeks believed philosophy was a medicine for the soul. Socrates said 'I teach my student how to take care of their souls', which is where the word psychotherapy comes from. Cicero said, 'there's a medical art for the soul, and its name is philosophy'.

If you want to have a great startup idea, don't try to think of a startup. If you focus on creating a startup, you'll be grounding yourself in the present, studying customers living in the present, their problems in the present, and their unmet needs in the present. You want to define a future market by living in the future.

I'm particularly obsessed by communications; and if you are committed to doing charitable things, and- of course- have your primary duty to ensure money is spent well and makes a difference – I think you may also have the duty to make sure that you try to affect the general attitudes people have towards the issues too.