Wisdom in fragments

No one wakes up eager to write because it often reveals your shortcomings. It's like staring at your face in a mirror for two hours—after a few minutes, all you see are flaws. Discipline sees me through those self-doubts.

NBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion

When you're a child, you define your team as those wearing the same jerseys and your team's goal is to defeat anyone wearing different jerseys. But as you get older, your notion of what constitutes a team evolves.

NBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion

Sports taught me that, rather than be blind followers of rules, we need to constantly question them as to their purpose and validity and be bold enough to change them if they don't serve our value of fair play.

NBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion

So, the lesson I eventually learned was to distinguish between which teams are sincere in promoting true teamwork, and which are jingoistic self-serving pretenders. Teamwork does make the dream work, but not every team is worthy.

NBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion

A little neglect may breed mischief …for want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost.

Legendary Basketball Coach & Teacher, Won 10 NCAA National Championships

If you do not pull your socks on tightly, you're likely to get wrinkles in them. Wrinkles cause blisters. Blisters force players to sit on the sideline. And players sitting on the sideline lose games.

Legendary Basketball Coach & Teacher, Won 10 NCAA National Championships

I also worry greatly about how our world is now, with so many people and few resources to sustain them… with countries who are threatening each other with atomic weapons…. Weapons which can never be used because they would destroy the earth.

Holocaust survivor and author, stepsister of Anne Frank

We have become robots, instead of humans with feelings… with conversations… with letter writing, you know.

Holocaust survivor and author, stepsister of Anne Frank

I remember we used to have much better family ties too… parents very often lived with you, little children learned from the older generations, there was a deep personal link between generations… now? if I give advice to one of my grandchildren they laugh and say, 'oh my, you don't know about our lives today…'

Holocaust survivor and author, stepsister of Anne Frank

We [older generations] want to sit down with people and talk about things- but young people go to a restaurant, and sit together, both with their telephones! In today's world, people have become so ambitious, everything has to be quick, and everyone wants more… there is so much greed. Have, have, have. Everything has to be quick.

Holocaust survivor and author, stepsister of Anne Frank

We have lost the personal touch – today, everything is fast – impersonal, digital… yet, we are not robots. We need personal contact, we need to understand each other's feelings… and this can't be done via email; and especially for the older generations in or society, this change is really hard.

Holocaust survivor and author, stepsister of Anne Frank

I've often thought that maybe there is a certain hormone in human beings that we can only produce it when we are face to face. And it's the hormone of shame – it becomes absent when you are communicating on social media and you become worse than you are.

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

I am not a big fan of the word hope, I am a big fan of the word determination. Being determined is a moral position, when you are depend on the word hope you are lazy.

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

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