Quotes to inspire and reflect

We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering.

The malaria parasite has been killing children and sapping the strength of whole populations for tens of thousands of years. It is impossible to calculate the harm malaria has done to the world.

Nuclear energy, in terms of an overall safety record, is better than other energy.

By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited... The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while.

If I'd had some set idea of a finish line, don't you think I would have crossed it years ago?

By 2018, an estimated 63 percent of all new U.S. jobs will require workers with an education beyond high school. For our young people to get those jobs, they first need to graduate from high school ready to start a postsecondary education.

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top - I'm afraid that's not quite right.

I was lucky to be involved and get to contribute to something that was important, which is empowering people with software.

Driving up the value of the advertising is a big commitment for Microsoft.

Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.

Corruption is one of the most common reasons I hear in views that criticize aid.

You may have heard of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There's another day you might want to know about: Giving Tuesday. The idea is pretty straightforward. On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, shoppers take a break from their gift-buying and donate what they can to charity.

Treatment without prevention is simply unsustainable.

Headlines, in a way, are what mislead you because bad news is a headline, and gradual improvement is not.

Should there be cameras everywhere in outdoor streets? My personal view is having cameras in inner cities is a very good thing. In the case of London, petty crime has gone down. They catch terrorists because of it. And if something really bad happens, most of the time you can figure out who did it.

What's amazing is, if young people understood how doing well in school makes the rest of their life so much more interesting, they would be more motivated. It's so far away in time that they can't appreciate what it means for their whole life.

Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.

You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well.

Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone

This is a fantastic time to be entering the business world, because business is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 50.

The vision is really about empowering workers, giving them all the information about what's going on so they can do a lot more than they've done in the past.

I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.

Every day we were saying, 'How can we keep this customer happy?' How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don't, somebody else will.

If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 MPG.

Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.

Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself.

It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

Great organizations demand a high level of commitment by the people involved.

To create a new standard it takes something that's not just a little bit different. It takes something that's really new and really captures people's imagination. And the Macintosh, of all the machines I've ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard.

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction.

I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in.

If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.

If you can't make it good, at least make it look good.

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

If you give people tools, and they use their natural ability and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.

Life is not fair; get used to it.

Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I don't think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without the talking about the other.

One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.

Where humor is concerned there are no standards - no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will.

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.

A nuclear war does not defend a country and it does not defend a system. I've put it the same way many times; not even the most accomplished ideologue will be able to tell the difference between the ashes of capitalism and the ashes of communism.

Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.

Power is as power does.

The greater the wealth the thicker will be the dirt.