Topics /Quotes about Changing the World
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“When I was seven, I taped a fork to a drill. … It had a profound effect on me. It sounds silly, but I thought, ‘Okay, the way the world works can be changed.’”
— Jay SilverJay Silver: Hack a banana, make a keyboard!
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“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 PallottaDan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong
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“Anger is like gasoline. If you spray it around and somebody lights a match, you've got an inferno. [But] if we can put our anger inside an engine, it can drive us forward.”
— Scilla ElworthyScilla Elworthy: Fighting with non-violence
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“The greening of America starts first with the pocket, then with the heart and then with the mind.”
— Stephen RitzStephen Ritz: A teacher growing green in the South Bronx
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“Let's go into every country that will let us in [and] ask 1,001 people what they want the [world's] new goals to be.”
— Jamie DrummondJamie Drummond: Let's crowdsource the world's goals
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“Questions [about our healthcare system] are not hard because the answers are complicated, they are hard because they require that we be honest with ourselves.”
— Rebecca OnieRebecca Onie: What if our healthcare system kept us healthy?
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“Human development, not secularization, is what's key to women's empowerment in the transforming Middle East.”
— Dalia MogahedDalia Mogahed: The attitudes that sparked Arab Spring
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“The Web of ancient manuscripts of the future isn't going to be built by institutions. It's going to be built by users … people who just want to curate their own glorious selection of beautiful things.”
— William NoelWilliam Noel: Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes
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“Don't assume that what we currently think is out there is the full story. Go after the dark matter, in whatever field you choose to explore.”
— Nathan WolfeNathan Wolfe: What's left to explore?
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“Can art change the world? Maybe … we should change the question: Can art change people's lives?”
— JRJR: One year of turning the world inside out
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“Fire made us human, fossil fuels made us modern, but now we need a new fire that makes us safe, secure, healthy and durable.”
— Amory LovinsAmory Lovins: A 40-year plan for energy
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“What if we could make energy do our work without working our undoing?”
— Amory LovinsAmory Lovins: A 40-year plan for energy
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“We get so little news about the developing world that we often forget that there are literally millions of people out there struggling to change things to be fairer, freer, more democratic, less corrupt.”
— Alex SteffenAlex Steffen: The route to a sustainable future
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“We have to craft new political realities, not only in places like India, Afghanistan, Kenya, Pakistan, but here at home as well. Another world is possible.”
— Alex SteffenAlex Steffen: The route to a sustainable future
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“Just using a checklist requires [doctors] to embrace different values from ones we've had, like humility, discipline, teamwork.”
— Atul GawandeAtul Gawande: How do we heal medicine?
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“[In medicine,] we have trained, hired and rewarded people to be cowboys, but it's pit crews that we need.”
— Atul GawandeAtul Gawande: How do we heal medicine?
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“Making systems work is the great task of my generation of physicians and scientists. But I would go further and say that making systems work — whether in healthcare, education, climate change, making a pathway out of poverty — is the great task of our generation as a whole.”
— Atul GawandeAtul Gawande: How do we heal medicine?
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“You can't make a recipe for something as complicated as surgery. Instead, you can make a recipe for how to have a team that's prepared for the unexpected.”
— Atul GawandeAtul Gawande: How do we heal medicine?
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“Our desire to bring every good thing to our children is a force for good throughout the world. It's what propels societies forward.”
— Melinda GatesMelinda Gates: Let's put birth control back on the agenda
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“Our biggest threat is not an asteroid about to crash into us, something we can do nothing about. Instead, all the major threats facing us today are problems entirely of our own making. And since we made the problems, we can also solve the problems.”
— Jared DiamondJared Diamond on why societies collapse
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