From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity....
We got to the point where, we are not on our grandparents' planet anymore. Meat has become less healthy for us – it's too available. There are too many calories, too much saturated fat. Animals are no longer 'free-rangy', they are growing in very tight confined conditions.
Researching the story of empire didn't make me hate Britain, rather it gave me a deeper sense of belonging because it made me realise that we (brown people) have been here for centuries.
I learned more from the people at those events – the community, the customer – than anyone in business.
While people may have more connections than ever, these connections often lack depth; they are rarely reciprocal and seldom provide emotional sustenance. The pain of loneliness is something else entirely—stemming from being deliberately excluded, ostracized, or bullied.
As a nation, we're missing out by not being more flexible, accommodating and encouraging and I think lockdown has- at least- brought about that one piece of positive change.
Rituals are basically conventional forms of behaviour – the stuff that fashions and traditions are made of. They're not just important in our own society—they're important in every human society, as far as we can tell, going back into deep history and prehistory. And so they are part of our collective inheritance. They vary a lot, but the thing is rituals are universal, and at the same time, they're the building blocks of cultural diversity, of traditions that make us distinct from one another.
GDP and GNP shouldn't be scrapped, they're of value, but they don't even give us an indication of economic well-being let alone individual well-being
In biology we are still in a kind of Ptolemaic era with man considering himself the centre of the universe.
My father taught me an important lesson; when you get something, when you receive something, it's important to give back. This lesson is something that has really stuck with me through my whole life, and I've always tried to do social good as much as I can.
The world of celebrity offers an escape from the real world, and offers different things to different people. To many, the celebrity world is aspirational, they imagine themselves living that lifestyle and dream of how it would be to go to that premiere, have that fancy house, or that expensive vacation. For others, the world of celebrity is like watching a car-wreck.
All you have to do is walk through an airport, for example, and notice that it is very difficult to navigate through it. You will encounter humans (almost statue like) who are glued – looking at their mobile phones, unaware of what is happening around them, because they are addicted to their technology. That is by design that people are addicted to technology.