Wisdom in fragments

It's hard for people to defend democracy when it cannot defend them against social injustice.

Turkish journalist, author, and political commentator known for critical writings on democracy

If you say 'I hate politics!' you are removing yourself from the public sphere, and are rejecting the ability to be a political subject. You are submitting yourself to a higher order, a powerful ruler…

Turkish journalist, author, and political commentator known for critical writings on democracy

Once the cancer of authoritarianism gets into the veins and organs of society, it's not easy to get-out – they have this very specific way of paralysing political mechanisms and dismantling the fundamental human logic.

Turkish journalist, author, and political commentator known for critical writings on democracy

Populism is the act of politicising and mobilising ignorance to the point of political and moral insanity.

Turkish journalist, author, and political commentator known for critical writings on democracy

There is also a huge cultural misconception that heart disease is the patient's fault, they did something wrong to themselves. When we blame individuals and not the society that created those risk factors and behaviours, we don't react as forcefully as we could.

Cardiologist and author specializing in heart disease and public health

Diseases of the heart are sometimes thought of as forgotten diseases, which is ironic as they still kill more people than any other condition on the planet… and are on the rise in some of the largest countries in the world like China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Cardiologist and author specializing in heart disease and public health

The heart is dramatic. Many of your other crucial organs – your liver, your kidneys- do their work in bureaucratic silence. Your heart is dramatic and reacts to how you feel. Your heart moves with your emotions, it quiets down when you're about to sleep, or when you're relaxed.

Cardiologist and author specializing in heart disease and public health

I grew up with a fear of the heart as an executioner of men in the prime of their lives. We're extraordinarily vulnerable to the functions of our heart, no other organ can cause sudden death.

Cardiologist and author of "Intern" and "Heart: A History

Growing up in Pakistan, I saw so many people with heart disease and having heart attacks – it felt almost biblical – it was catastrophic. Unlike a lot of diseases, there wasn't much a cultural footprint for heart disease – it's not something you hear about on news or TV shows…. You don't see much advocacy done around it.

Cardiologist and author specializing in heart disease and public health

If you lose your ego, you lose the thread of that narrative you call your Self…humans, however, can't live very long without some sense of a continuing story.

Japanese novelist known for surrealist fiction and magical realism works

We have one planet, and we have to make it work for everyone, not just one group. The same is true of the global economy – which can only really work if it works for everyone.

Philosopher, Cosmopolitanism Advocate & Princeton University Professor

You can take a form of identity that's been historically associated with repression and hierarchy, and make it more egalitarian – that's what we've been trying to do with gender. Let me be clear, I'm not in favour of the abolition of gender, but I do think there's a lot of work we need to do in order to find more equality.

Philosopher, Cosmopolitanism Advocate & Princeton University Professor

In today's United States, asking a republican parent if it was OK for their daughter to marry a democrat would elicit a response similar to asking parents years ago if their daughter could marry a black person – the polarization is astounding.

Philosopher, Cosmopolitanism Advocate & Princeton University Professor

If you had to make everything up in your life, from the start, with no input whatsoever – that wouldn't be freedom – you'd be less free; you'd have to think constantly about what you should or should not do. There would be no structure for your life choices.

Philosopher, Cosmopolitanism Advocate & Princeton University Professor

People are individuals, they have to make lives and decide how to live their individuality – and society provides labels to allow that for example, 'I am a man, and here are the things that men typically do, and so I'm going to do those things…' or 'I'm British, that means I must like tea and cricket… or a cheeky Nando's'

Philosopher, Cosmopolitanism Advocate & Princeton University Professor

People come to Glastonbury and can try out ways of living that can be rolled out across the country. If we can make a change at the festival, then why not across a whole city like Oxford, it's the same size!

Co-organizer of Glastonbury Festival with her father Michael Eavis