Hans Rosling
The 1 to 2 billion poorest in the world, who don't have food for the day, suffer from the worst disease: globalization deficiency. The way globalization is occurring could be much better, but the worst thing is not being part of it. For those people, we need to support good civil societies and governments.Collection: Food
My best friend in medical school was a magician. And we were shown an X-ray of a sword-swallower, and I tried it and failed. Then I got a sword-swallower as a patient, and he taught me.Collection: Medical
What I'm really worried about is war. Will the former rich countries really accept a completely changed world economy, and a shift of power away from where it has been the last 50 to 100 to 150 years, back to Asia?Collection: War
I am not an optimist. I'm a very serious possibilist. It's a new category where we take emotion apart and we just work analytically with the world.
Avoid war, because that always pushes human beings backward.
I've done a lot of practical anthropology, living in villages with people and realizing how difficult it is to get out of poverty. When in poverty, people use their skill to avoid hunger. They can't use it for progress.
We have great international experts within India telling us that the climate is changing, and actions has to be taken, otherwise China and India would be the countries most to suffer from climate change.
You have to fit in sometimes to make people comfortable to listen to you.
My interest is not data, it's the world. And part of world development you can see in numbers. Others, like human rights, empowerment of women, it's very difficult to measure in numbers.
When I have an argument with someone, even with someone I am not very close with, I can't sleep at night thinking about it. It's terrible. But I still manage speak out frankly because I have also been gifted with the ability to read people. I can sense when they start to get irritated with me, and then, I shift.
I meet so many that think population growth is a major problem in regard to climate change. But the number of children born per year in the world has stopped growing since 1990. The total number of children below 15 years of age in the world are now relatively stable around 2 billion.
The shining star in the world is Shanghai. That's what CEOs from big companies say - 'if I want mathematical analytical work done, it's done in China.'
Beyond 2050 the world population may start to decrease if women across the world will have, on average, less than 2 children. But that decrease will be slow.
I loved statistics from a young age. And I studied very much in Sweden. I used to be in the upper quarter of all courses I attended. But in St. John's, I was in the lower quarter. And the fact was that Indian students studied harder than we did in Sweden. They read the textbook twice, or three times or four times.
To get away from poverty, you need several things at the same time: school, health, and infrastructure - those are the public investments. And on the other side, you need market opportunities, information, employment, and human rights.
Data allow your political judgments to be based on fact, to the extent that numbers describe realities.
Good analysis is very useful when you want to convert a political decision into an investment. It can also go the other way and drive policy.
Eighteen fifty-eight was a year of great technological advancement in the West. That was the year when Queen Victoria was able, for the first time, to communicate with President Buchanan, through the Transatlantic Telegraphic Cable. And they were the first to 'Twitter' transatlantically.
The number of children is not growing any longer in the world. We are still debating peak oil, but we have definitely reached peak child.
Well, the truth is I'm very scared for people to dislike me. I have conflict-avoidance.
Cancer is awful. It took 10 years until I didn't think about it every day. Nobody should go through this. Nobody.
Fame is easy to acquire; impact is much more difficult.
Fame is a dangerous thing. It's what the post-industrial society wants. They want fame and many followers on Twitter. But to really make the world understandable, that challenge is remaining.
I am a toxico-nutritional neuro-epidemiologist. It's the study of neurological disorders caused by a mixture of toxins and malnutrition using epidemiological methods... We are just three or four in the world, even fewer than sword swallowers.
While teaching a course on global development at Uppsala University in Sweden, I realized our students didn't have a fact-based worldview. They talked about 'we' and 'them.' They thought there were two groups of countries: the Western world, with small families and long lives, and the Third World, with large families and short lives.
There's about one sword-swallower per 2 to 4 million persons in each country.
There's still racism. Western Europe... has taken the native cultures of the Americas, the African cultures, the Asian civilization and lumped them together into The Others.
There is still a severe and scary amount of extreme poverty in rural parts of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Burma and sub-Saharan Africa.
The idea is to go from numbers to information to understanding.Collection: Ideas
Let the dataset change your mindsetCollection: Mindset
I have a neighbor who knows 200 types of wine. ... I only know two types of wine - red and white. But my neighbor only knows two types of countries - industrialized and developing. And I know 200.Collection: Country
I have a motto: it's never too late to give up. It's never too late to give up what you are doing, and start doing what you realise you love.Collection: Giving Up
I have a suggestion for a new name for the developing world. Let's call it the world.Collection: Names
Few people will appreciate the music if I just show them the notes. Most of us need to [hear it].Collection: People
I have shown that Swedish top students know statistically significantly less about the world than the chimpanzees.Collection: Motivation
Health cannot be bought at the supermarket. You have to invest in health. You have to get kids into schooling. You have to train health staff. You have to educate the population.Collection: Motivation
Thank you industrialization. Thank you steel mill. Thank you power station. And thank you chemical processing industry that gave us time to read books.Collection: Book
Most people are not updated. 50 years ago 1 in 5 children died before age 5, now only 1 in 20!Collection: Children
My experience from 20 years of Africa is that the seemingly impossible is possible.Collection: Motivation
If you have democracy, people will vote for washing machines. They love them.Collection: Motivation
Half of the energy is used by one seventh of the world's population.Collection: Motivation
Britain didn't win WWII by panicking. Let´s be bold, determined and stick to the best of values.Collection: Winning
We must obviously be much more clever in using resources, regulate with tax and promote innovations.Collection: Clever
It seems the public in Europe has not yet learnt that most girls in India today go to school.Collection: Girl
There are two billion fellow human beings who live on less than $2 a day.Collection: Motivation
You don't have to get rich to have [fewer] children. It has happened across the world.Collection: Children
Good analysis is very useful when you want to convert a political decision into an investment. It can also go the other way and drive policyCollection: Decision
The database hugging in public institutions is hampering innovation.Collection: Innovation
If your economy grows [by] 4 percent, you ought to reduce child mortality 4 percent.Collection: Children
I (naively) thought university training would make you better in following what happens in the world.Collection: Training