“Fundamentally, where creativity is concerned, people are trying to express an idea or solve a problem. This applies in business, the arts, or even solving family or societal problems.”
— Ed Catmull
Co-Founder of Pixar & Pioneer in Computer Graphics

The quote archive

Philosophy

A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.

It's only when you look back that you can connect the dots to where we are right now. All of us go through things that make us think, 'this makes no sense, why is this happening to me!…' but when you look back you realise that had it not been for 'that,' you wouldn't have had that opportunity… that meeting… that chance… that love.

— Matthew McConaughey

Academy Award-Winning Actor Known for Dallas Buyers Club Role

What's beautiful is when you're filling your bank account and your soul account. There are two accounts! Look, I like money, I like fame… I happen to be rich and famous… I don't apologise for those things, nor do I boohoo them or approach my appreciation for them with false modesty.

— Matthew McConaughey

Academy Award-Winning Actor Known for Dallas Buyers Club Role

We're such a 'more is better' culture and we have to redefine what we value, what creates satisfaction, and the 'currency' of our lives. In America, what are we told are the two most important things we need in life? Money and fame, baby! That's fine, but you can't chase those goals at the expense of your own character, that makes you a paper tiger, a fool.

— Matthew McConaughey

Academy Award-Winning Actor Known for Dallas Buyers Club Role

When faced with the inevitable, get relative.

— Matthew McConaughey

Academy Award-Winning Actor Known for Dallas Buyers Club Role

The greatest adventure that any of us can take is answering these questions for ourselves. This isn't deep, dark, conversation, it's normal conversation. The wisest, coolest prophets out there… people like the Dalai Lama… they're full of joy.

— Matthew McConaughey

Academy Award-Winning Actor Known for Dallas Buyers Club Role

What it means to be creative is pretty simple. It's to do something human, something generous, something that might not work. It has to be all 3 of those things. You will find creative accountants, politicians, housekeepers and engineers… being creative is to solve interesting problems!

— Seth Godin

Marketing Thought Leader & Author of "The Purple Cow

Music is also incorruptible in many ways. I can hear when music isn't authentic, or when it isn't coming from the heart and soul. Music is a pure, universal, language that can transcend.

— Nitin Sawhney

British-Indian composer and musician known for world music and film scores

Music is woven into the fabric of the universe. As far back as Pythagoras and Kepler, scientists were writing about the fact that music was intrinsic in the planets… part of the harmonic series in sound. Music is built into our neurology, our survival instincts and our communication.

— Nitin Sawhney

British-Indian composer and musician known for world music and film scores

I know a lot of people who develop and improve by squeezing more and more out of a repertoire, but the journey of development for me is somewhat opposite to that. I'm trying to let go more and more, to be less controlled and more open… that's where I feel the most impactful storytelling comes from.

— Nicola Benedetti

Scottish violinist & classical music ambassador

The scientist mindset says, I will not let my ideas become an ideology. When I start to form an opinion, I should treat it as a hypothesis before doing some observations or experiments to test it. I should be just as excited to find out I was wrong as to prove I am right.

— Adam Grant

Organizational psychologist & bestselling author on work culture and human potential

In the long-term there is no way to reconcile the conflict of interest between serving the user and the advertiser.

— Sridhar Ramaswamy

Former Google Executive & Founder of Perplexity AI

We have turned life into a business model- and have somewhat forgotten the reciprocity we have with nature rather; we just see it as a resource. We have maintained societies for thousands of years based on a reciprocal relationship with nature, and we need to.

— Ziya Tong

Canadian science broadcaster and host of Discovery Channel's Daily Planet

We're outnumbered by bacteria 1.3:1, we're slightly more bacteria than we are human. We're also stardust. We are also 60% water, and that water in our bodies is billions of years old. At an atomic level, 98% of the hydrogen in our bodies came from the bigbang. We're incredibly ancient beings, perhaps we should see ourselves as aliens!

— Ziya Tong

Canadian science broadcaster and host of Discovery Channel's Daily Planet

Our senses allow us to perceive, but they're incredibly limited. Science sees far beyond our human blind spots, and the reaches of this 'bubble' our senses create for us. When you're in a bubble, you inhabit a form of fictional reality, and we've seen the dangerous consequences of this in financial bubbles, stock market bubbles, real estate bubbles.

— Ziya Tong

Canadian science broadcaster and host of Discovery Channel's Daily Planet

The idea that if you are proud to be British you need to be proud of British history is nonsensical. Does it mean you have to be proud of all of history? Of slavery? You might as well be proud of biology or jelly.

— Sathnam Sanghera

British journalist and author, wrote "The Boy with the Topknot

Ultimately, you have to fail at some stage with whatever you do, to get the successes that you need in the end.

— Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill

British Olympic heptathlon champion and gold medalist