Society

As I see it, education that strengthens our inclination toward the good is the means toward creating decent behavior in humans. Such education should be of the formal kind and through role modeling and osmosis.

When pushed to extremes by exterior influences, real or perceived as real, the inclination toward evil can overwhelm our psychic system and push us toward extreme cruelty toward others and even toward the self.

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

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.

Cardiologist and author specializing in heart disease and public health

Even if there's no profound cultural difference between brown, black and white Britons… they speak the same language, eat the same food, abstain from going to the same churches… identity culture assigns significance to their bodily differences, and so race exists.

Philosopher, Cosmopolitanism Advocate & Princeton University Professor

You cannot get rid of identities, but you can reform them. 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.

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

Identities are useful – 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

Most people run around like biological robots, as if we are an algorithm not a being. We become the predictable outcomes of the conditioned reflexes of our nerves, constantly triggered by people in reaction to circumstances.

Wellness Entrepreneur & Author Promoting Mind-Body Medicine and Spirituality

The reason for having leadership is to be found in the social nature of man. As an individual being man has the ability to act and to direct his own behaviour. But man lives in a society with a complex structure in which the actions of many individuals within groups in a variety of situations have to be directed.

Our entire civilisation is a manifestation of the complex inner worlds we carry with us. Everything around us, our buildings, cultures, politics, economies, statues, art and music are reflections of who we were, are and want to be.

Founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program

My hands have been known mostly for the leather gloves that I've used as an instrument to punish opposing fighters. Outside the ring, though, I want my legacy to be the man with bare hands that offered kindness and hope to those in need.

World Champion Boxer & Philippine Senator

I wasn't just fighting for myself. I was fighting for an entire country and millions of fans around the world who believe in me. That is why I will always give 100% in and out of the ring.

World Champion Boxer & Philippine Senator

People come to Glastonbury and can try out ways of living that can be rolled out across the country. It's a place where people come to be a part of something… something greater than the sum of its parts.

Co-organizer of Glastonbury Festival with her father Michael Eavis

It feels to us that the festival is owned by the people, and me and my Dad are kind-of custodians of it. In that sense, it's a bit like a sailing ship… me and my Dad drive it, but the ship is made of a few hundred people.

Co-organizer of Glastonbury Festival with her father Michael Eavis

Those three hours in a movie theatre gave people a chance to forget their woes and become one with their hero or heroine on screen. Cinema formed a means of escapism for people, from what they had to go through in their daily lives.

Indian Film Producer & Head of Walt Disney Company India