Wisdom in fragments

I don't know why I didn't just walk-away from Los Alamos...

Theater director and avant-garde performance artist; founder of The Wooster Group

We need to be responsible adults, yet society is- at best- irresponsible adolescents. Our society isn't worried about long-term consequences, it's 'live for today, party now, forget about the hangover...'

Co-inventor of Public-Key Cryptography & Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

We are at a stage of development where we have 'god like' physical powers. In the bible, only God could create new life forms- yet with the genetics technologies we have, we can do that. In the Bible, only God was supposed to be able to throw down thunderbolts that could incinerate whole cities; we call them nuclear weapons.

Co-inventor of Public-Key Cryptography & Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

Our ethics are not static, they evolve over time and that gives me tremendous hope. If we had remained static, the progress we have made would have been impossible. The evolution of ethics is essential to our survival.

Co-inventor of Public-Key Cryptography & Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

I realised that what people do is, instead of figuring out the right thing to do and then doing it whether they want to or not, doing the ethical thing, what they do is they figure out what they want to do and then come up with the rationalisation for doing it, whether it's right or wrong. And we fool ourselves.

Co-inventor of Public-Key Cryptography & Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

There's a great quote that is 'political correctness is tyranny with manners'. With Lululemon, we put authenticity into everything we did, it was about being great. Our vision statement was about elevating the world from a place of mediocrity to greatness.

Founder of Lululemon Athletica, Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist

We were poor, had no branding, and had no money- the only way we could get people into store was to put everything on rollers, and move it to the side, so we could have yoga classes in the middle of the store- a lot of inventions come from the mother of necessity!

Founder of Lululemon Athletica, Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist

Before we came to market, everything in retail was about how cheaply you could pay your employees- and unfortunately, particularly women. There was an attitude in retail that said, '... well, your female employees are just going to get married, have children at 23 and leave, so why invest in them?' The reality of the world was that 60% of university graduates were women- and most women were having children later, entering professional careers.

Founder of Lululemon Athletica, Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist

Our number one instinct is survival, followed by reproduction. People started to realise that if they took care of themselves, they would live longer, have better sex and have healthier children. The mission of my family, which ended up being Lululemon, was for people to be able to live healthier, longer, and more fun lives.

Founder of Lululemon Athletica, Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist

My fun statement is that if I see the same thing, three times in one week, from disparate news or information sources, I have to move quickly as it's a trend that's likely to happen.

Founder of Lululemon Athletica, Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist

Our message to countries continues to be: you must take a comprehensive approach. Not testing alone. Not contact tracing alone. Not quarantine alone. Not social distancing alone. Do it all. Any country that looks at the experience of other countries with large epidemics and thinks 'that won't happen to us' is making a deadly mistake. It can happen to any country…

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2017

Until James DeGale won a World Title, no-one who'd won a gold medal for Britain in the Olympic Games had ever won a professional World Title, which is quite amazing when you think about that. Think of the guys that didn't even get to the Olympic Games like Naseem Hamed, Nigel Benn, Eubank, Joe Calzaghe, Tyson Fury, Ricky Hatton. Sometimes the greatest boxers get overlooked- or maybe it's because of whoever is picking the amateur team… or maybe there are politics involved…. Sometimes you may just come across guys who are hungrier!

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series

There's an old adage that the boxer is the last one to know – it's not true, he's the first one to know, but the last to acknowledge it. You can learn from defeat – it's not the end of the world, but you have to learn from it and realise that there are times when you can come back, and times where you have to say, 'enough… enough…. You're getting too hurt… you're just not the guy you were…'

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series

Anyone can have a good trainer; you can learn the moves and get fit. Any boxer or athlete can get super fit – the edge is mental ability – It's having the self-belief. If you're not right in the head? You'll never do it. I've seen guys getting beaten mentally. Mike Tyson beat a lot of fighters mentally before they even got in the ring, Tyson Fury does the same thing – they get in people's minds.

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series

To be a great fighter you obviously have to have talent, but what really matters is dedication and discipline. I've seen so many guys with talent where I've thought, 'this guy's going to be a world champion…' but they've not had the dedication. They've not given what you had to give, which is everything. To succeed as a boxer, you have to dedicate your life to it… it's a very short career for a professional fighter.

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series

I got into boxing promotion by accident. One of my cousins was a boxer, so I used to go watch him fight as an amateur and then when he turned pro. He had a fight, I went to watch it… he got beat and had a return match… he beat the guy… they had another match, but they wanted to pay them crap money. I went to the meeting, turned around and said, '…I don't need you, we'll promote it…' I don't know why I even said that! The next minute, I was in the promotion business and helping to get this thing together; I got bitten by the bug, and it went from there.

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series