TED Quotes

“I have come to believe that coming true is not the only purpose of a dream. Its most important purpose is to get us in touch with where dreams come from, where passion comes from, where happiness comes from.” — Lisa Bu

Lisa Bu: How books can open your mind

“Nineteen thousand children [are] dying every day. Does it really matter that we're not walking past them in the street? Does it really matter that they're far away? I don't think it does make a morally relevant difference.” — Peter Singer

Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism

“If we're going to live an ethical life, it's not enough just to follow the thou-shalt-nots. … If we have enough, we have to share some of that with people who have so little.” — Peter Singer

Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism

“Forget about having an identity crisis and get some identity capital. … Do something that adds value to who you are. Do something that's an investment in who you might want to be next.” — Meg Jay

Meg Jay: Why 30 is not the new 20

“Human life is inherently creative. It's why we all have different résumés. … It's why human culture is so interesting and diverse and dynamic.” — Ken Robinson

Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley

“Every child deserves a champion — an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.” — Rita F. Pierson

Rita Pierson: Every kid needs a champion

“Walk and talk. … You'll be surprised at how fresh air drives fresh thinking.” — Nilofer Merchant

Nilofer Merchant: Got a meeting? Take a walk

“[The flush toilet is] a wonderful waste disposal device. But I think that it's so good — it doesn't smell, we can put it in our house, we can lock it behind a door — and I think we've locked it out of conversation too.” — Rose George

Rose George: Let's talk crap. Seriously.

“The bad news is that ignoring the performance of people is almost as bad as shredding their effort in front of their eyes. … The good news is that by simply looking at something that somebody has done, scanning it and saying ‘uh huh,’ [you] dramatically improve people's motivations.” — Dan Ariely

Dan Ariely: What makes us feel good about our work?

“It's hard work that makes the difference. I don't care how smart you are or how smart you think you are. Smart simply means you're ready to learn.” — Freeman Hrabowski

Freeman Hrabowski: 4 pillars of college success in science

“When the pundits and the politicians say that change is impossible, [we must say,] ‘That's just irrelevant.’ We lose something dear … if we lose this republic, and so we act with everything we can to prove these pundits wrong.” — Lawrence Lessig

Lawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim

“If you hear an expert talking about the Internet and saying it [does] this, or it will do that, you should treat it with the same skepticism that you might treat the comments of an economist about the economy or a weatherman about the weather.” — Danny Hillis

Danny Hillis: The Internet could crash. We need a Plan B

“People are mostly focused on defending the computers on the Internet, and there's been surprisingly little attention to defending the Internet itself as a communications medium. [We] need to pay some more attention to that, because it's actually kind of fragile.” — Danny Hillis

Danny Hillis: The Internet could crash. We need a Plan B

“Acquiring preemptive knowledge about emerging technologies is the best way to ensure that we have a say in the making of our future.” — Catarina Mota

Catarina Mota: Play with smart materials

“Facts, like people, want to be free — and when they're free, liberty is usually around the corner.” — Bono

Bono: The good news on poverty (Yes, there's good news)

“Humans have made a huge hole in nature in the last 10,000 years. [With de-extinction,] we have the ability now, and maybe the moral obligation, to repair some of the damage.” — Stewart Brand

Stewart Brand: The dawn of de-extinction. Are you ready?

“Our generation does not want its epitaph to read, ‘We kept charity overhead low.’ We want it to read that we changed the world.” — Dan Pallotta

Dan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong

“If you can't see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror.” — Shane Koyczan

Shane Koyczan: "To This Day" ... for the bullied and beautiful

“Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do, especially in the inner city. Plus, you get strawberries.” — Ron Finley

Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA

“I think people have been obsessed with the wrong question, which is, ‘How do we make people pay for music?’ What if we started asking, ‘How do we LET people pay for music?’” — Amanda Palmer

Amanda Palmer: The art of asking