Philosophy

We end up living in the world virtually through the ideas that we conceive.

Educational reformer & TED speaker on creativity in schools

Human beings have very powerful imaginations; and we don't live in the world in the same way that other creatures seem to. We don't live in the world quite so directly, we live in the world of ideas… we have concepts, artefacts, languages, music, images, theories, philosophies, faiths and values which we work-on, inherit, construct, challenge, change and form.

Educational reformer & TED speaker on creativity in schools

For me, our sophisticated way of communicating- with words- is that crucial difference. It meant that for the first time, we could teach another about something that wasn't present… whereas young chimps just learn by observing. We can read books about the distant past, and plan the distant future.

Primatologist & Ethologist Who Revolutionized Study of Wild Chimpanzees

What failure really means is that you are trying to live life, and the fact that you fail means that you are trying. As soon as you try to avoid failure, you are facing the wrong direction.

Co-Founder of Pixar & Pioneer in Computer Graphics

If you don't have some failures continually, it is a signal that you have retreated into the conservative past. Most people still interpret failure as an unfortunate thing to get to success, but this isn't actually what it means.

Co-Founder of Pixar & Pioneer in Computer Graphics

What is the value of asking the right question to prompt the right answer? It would be difficult to find a sector that design and/or design thinking cannot impact.

BMW Chief Designer; Revolutionized Automotive Design Language in 2000s

A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation.

Science fiction author who coined the term "cyberspace

The law is not an end in itself, but a means to achieve justice. When the law fails to deliver justice, we must be willing to reform the law, not abandon the pursuit of justice.

Former Master of the Rolls & English judicial law reform pioneer

Freedom of expression isn't just about protecting popular speech - it's about creating the conditions where unpopular ideas can challenge power and where dissent can flourish without fear.

Voice actor best known for voicing Megatron in Transformers series

The real tragedy is that we have become so accustomed to injustice that we no longer recognize it when we see it. We've normalized inequality, normalized discrimination, normalized the idea that some people matter less than others.

Executive Director of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Humanity, having never faced any serious competition or whole-species-threats, feels relatively safe from existential events and cannot conceive any threats it may be creating.

Co-Founder of Skype & Estonian Entrepreneur & Technologist

Humankind has become a force in the biosphere as powerful as many natural forces of change, stronger than some, and sometimes as mindless as any.

Chief Scientific Adviser to UK Government & Food Security Expert

We compensate for our failure to exercise actual control over events by creating a generalized, subjective sense of control by undertaking acts the effect of which on the environment is illusory.

Co-Founder of Skype & Estonian Entrepreneur & Technologist

As humans we need to evolve constantly because the behaviours that got us to a certain level won't suffice to even maintain this level let alone to take us to the next.

There's only so much our world will become richer by surrounding ourselves with clones of ourselves!

Monkeys are superior to men in this: When a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey.

Mauritian writer, philosopher, and aphorist known for poetic observations on life