Society

Bill Drayton has pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship, growing a global association of over 3,900 leading social entrepreneurs who work together to create an 'Everyone a Changemaker' world.

Founder of Ashoka & Pioneer of Social Entrepreneurship

The true measure of success for United Way and other philanthropic organizations is bottom-line results: the lives that are changed and the communities that are shaped.

President and CEO of United Way Worldwide

What makes any sport exciting is learning how to excel by staying within the confine of rules, not by winning through ignoring them. The team isn't just the one with your jersey, it's everyone who wears a jersey.

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

On the court, there was no prejudice, just your contribution to the team. Off the court, teamwork seemed like a parody of what we did. 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.

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

Forgetfulness of the past and the consequences such forgetfulness potentially produces. Extreme nationalism prevents nations from cooperating with other nations.

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