Philosophy

We can expand our circle of sympathy – we can employ the logic of impartiality, and the emotional prompts of human contact and vicarious experience, and expand our fellow-feeling from our family to our clan, our nation, tribe, and from there to all of humanity and even other sentient beings.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

Our capacity to reason is recursive, combinatorial – we can reason about our reason – we can argue, criticise and develop tools that enhance our reason thanks to language and communication. We have the power to build on our reason, to enhance it.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

I cannot argue that my own interests are special simply because I'm me and you're not and expect that you will take me seriously. The nature of logic forces us to cede our own pre-eminence, because there is nothing in the pronoun 'you' or 'he' or 'she' which confers some special status.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

There has never been a time at which Enlightenment values predominated in any culture. They have always faced pushback from forces that are embedded in human nature – tribalism, deference to authority, magical thinking, vulnerability to cognitive illusions and biases.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

The theory describes only the way objects interact with one another, without indicating what happens between one interaction and the next one.

Theoretical physicist known for loop quantum gravity research and popular science writing

Quantum mechanics says our world is nebulous, fuzzy, a haze of possibilities until it somehow snaps to attention upon an appropriate interaction, observation or measurement. That's a very strange reality, and the fact that this theory is so demonstrably correct is radically important to our understanding.

Theoretical Physicist & Bestselling Author on String Theory & Cosmology

The quantum universe is counter-intuitive, it's fuzzy, probabilistic, and suggests things that we would regard as fantastical and magical if we saw them on the everyday scale- yet it's the most powerful theory in science.

Theoretical physicist, author, and BBC science communicator known for public engagement

Quantum mechanics is the most radical break in our thinking of reality that we have ever encountered. Quantum mechanics comes along and says that whole experience is misleading, and that the best you can ever do is to predict the probabilities of outcomes.

Theoretical Physicist & Bestselling Author on String Theory & Cosmology

It's a myth that both sides of a negotiation have to be equally happy or unhappy. A great relationship is where people are happy- not just with how things are but with how they got to be.

Former FBI Hostage Negotiator & Author of "Never Split the Difference

An actor who isn't acting becomes a sort of non-person. If you're not acting, what are you?

Actor best known for Jurassic Park and The Piano films

There's also a danger in acting of identifying yourself as an actor. We have to try to identify ourselves as human beings first, and our jobs second. I'm Sam, I act sometimes… not I am Sam, I am an actor.

Actor best known for Jurassic Park and The Piano films

Authenticity- for me- is incredibly important. It's easy to spot the difference between acting and authentic performance- even though it may seem a contradiction in terms. You can tell when you see it, or when you experience it.

Actor best known for Jurassic Park and The Piano films

I wish I had known that Football is the most important part of the least important parts of my life. A bad result or losing in a final of the champions League is hard to take, but there are worse things to endure in life.

Legendary football manager with multiple Champions League titles

Purpose doesn't come to people sitting at the starting blocks and thinking about purpose. You have to live it.

Founder of Acumen Fund & social entrepreneur focused on global poverty alleviation

Inside each of us are monsters and angels- there are no divisions between good and bad people- and I've seen how those times of insecurity can make us do terrible things to each other.

Founder of Acumen Fund & social entrepreneur focused on global poverty alleviation

Those who have the most meaningful, purpose filled lives tend to dream so big – that those dreams will rarely be completed in a lifetime. What keeps you going is the beauty you encounter at every juncture of the path.

Founder of Acumen Fund & social entrepreneur focused on global poverty alleviation