Quote collection
152 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"we must go on fighting for basic education for all, but also emphasize the importance of the content of education. We have to make sure that sectarian schooling does not convert education into a prison, rather than being a passport to the wide world."
"Sometimes the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty"
"[Globalization] has enriched the world scientifically and culturally and benefited many people economically as well."
"Development requires major source of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or overactivity of repressive states."
"There are Muslims of all kinds. The idea of closing them into a single identity is wrong."
"The notion of human right builds on our shared humanity. These rights are not derived from the citizenship of any country, or the membership of any nation, but are presumed to be claims or entitlements of every human being. They differ, therefore, from constitutionally created rights guaranteed for specific people."
"the identity of an individual is essentially a function of her choices, rather than the discovery of an immutable attribute"
"Human life depends not only on income but also on social opportunities, [for example] what the state does for educating."
"No substantial famine has ever occurred in a democratic country - no matter how poor."
"While I am interested both in economics and in philosophy, the union of my interests in the two fields far exceeds their intersection."
"The increasing tendency towards seeing people in terms of one dominant ‘identity’ (‘this is your duty as an American’, ‘you must commit these acts as a Muslim’, or ‘as a Chinese you should give priority to this national engagement’) is not only an imposition of an external and arbitrary priority, but also the denial of an important liberty of a person who can decide on their respective loyalties to different groups (to all of which he or she belongs)."
"Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence... they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and... a free press and an active political opposition constitute the best early-warning system a country threaten by famines can have."
"Violence is fomented by the imposition of singular and belligerent identities on gullible people, championed by proficient artisans of terror."
"I really do believe that education, despite this massive potential in transforming human lives, has not received the kind of attention that people should have given to it."
"A defeated argument that refuses to be obliterated can remain very alive."
"The best hope for peace in the world lies in the simple but far-reaching recognition that we all have many different associations and affiliations, and we need not see ourselves as being rigidly divided by a single categorization of hardened groups, which confront each other."
"But once we recognize that many ideas that are taken to be quintessentially Western have also flourished in other civilizations, we also see that these ideas are not as culture-specific as is sometimes claimed. We need not begin with pessimism, at least on this ground, about the prospects of reasoned humanism in the world."
"Globalization is a complex issue, partly because economic globalization is only one part of it. Globalization is greater global closeness, and that is cultural, social, political, as well as economic."
"Gender inequality is not one problem, it's a collection of problems."
"Each human being is a citizen of the world. We have many identities, of which one of the identities is our human identity. And that's something that the schools can provide, but that requires again a vision rather than being centers of hatred. It could be an enormous opportunity to give that mission."