Thomas Friedman
I can see a day soon where you'll create your own college degree by taking the best online courses from the best professors from around the world - some computing from Stanford, some entrepreneurship from Wharton, some ethics from Brandeis, some literature from Edinburgh - paying only the nominal fee for the certificates of completion.
When I wrote 'The World Is Flat,' I said the world is flat. Yeah, we're all connected. Facebook didn't exist; Twitter was a sound; the cloud was in the sky; 4G was a parking place; LinkedIn was a prison; applications were what you sent to college; and Skype, for most people, was a typo.
The country that owns green, that dominates that industry, is going to have the most energy security, national security, economic security, competitive companies, healthy population and, most of all, global respect.
Two things are going on at the same time with the flattening of the world: The relentless quest for efficiency is squeezing some of the fat out of life.
If you don't visit the bad neighborhoods, the bad neighborhoods are going to visit you.
You win the presidency by connecting with the American people's gut insecurities and aspirations. You win with a concept.
Yes, the world is now flat for publishing as well.
We need to become energy independent or at least aspire to that.
There is no substitute for face-to-face reporting and research.
The historical debate is over. The answer is free-market capitalism.
Sometimes, when my wife and I were going out to dinner, I would take my laptop with me and work in the car, so as to take advantage of the half hour going and coming.
No, most of our political elite has not realized that the world is flat.
I have a daughter who is a sophomore in college and another who is in the 11th grade of high school.
I basically did all the library research for this book on Google, and it not only saved me enormous amounts of time but actually gave me a much richer offering of research in a shorter time.
I am hoping, though, that many of them have kids, who, when they have a moment to take a break from their iPods, Internet, or Google, will explain to their parents running the country just how the world is being flattened.
Rock stars get room keys, I get business cards.
I think we have lost our groove as a country. One of the reasons was the attack on 9/11. We got knocked off our game. From a country that always exported hope we went into the business of exporting fear.
America needs rebooting.
There's a difference between being able to make long distance phone calls cheaper on the Internet and walking around Riyadh with a PDA where you can have all of Google in your pocket. It's a difference in degree that's so enormous it becomes a difference in kind.
You take one bomber and deploy him in Baghdad, and another is manufactured in Riyadh the next day. It's exactly like when you take the toy off the shelf at Wal-Mart and another is made in Shen Zhen the next day.
Rock stars get room keys, I get business cards. Wherever I go I meet innovators of wind power equipment, solar energy operators.
Presidents grow up in the White House. The times shape the man.
I said that more people in more places can now compete, connect and collaborate with equal power and equal tools than ever before.
What is al Qaeda? It's an open source religious political movement that works off the global supply chain.
I've been a critic of the antiglobalization movement, and they've been a critic of me, but the one thing I respect about the movement is their authentic energy. These are not people who don't care about the world.
We need better neighbors, neighbors that care about the schools in their neighborhood whether they have kids in them or not, because they know that the health and vitality of that neighborhood depends on it.
A golf course should aspire to generate as much energy as it consumes - golf should be leading the way toward energy net zero.
Every sport needs its temple, its cathedral.
Every golf course should have its carbon rating on the scorecard, alongside its Course Rating, Slope, par and yardage.
We say that necessity is the mother of invention, and no country has more of a necessity to develop clean power than China.
We've gone from thinking the fuels that powered our growth were inexpensive, inexhaustible and benign to understanding they are exhaustible, expensive and toxic. Once you frame the problem that way, people will look at solutions differently.
If you don't have an ethic of conservation, you basically have a license to drive a Hummer through the Amazon.
I'm from Minnesota. I'm optimistic. I mean, that's just who I am.
What every employer is looking for is not someone who can do the job, but someone who can reinvent the job.Collection: Jobs
Hope and optimism aren't just attitudes, they are life strategies.Collection: Attitude
Your boss doesn't care what you know, because the Google machine knows everything. Your boss cares about what you can do with what you know. That's the only thing your boss will pay for.Collection: Boss
In the future, how we educate our children may prove to be more important than how much we educate them.Collection: Children
Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.Collection: Change
The thing you have to remember is, oil and gas are commodities, and the more we use them the more the price goes up, like any commodity. Solar, wind - they are technologies, so the more you use them, the more the price goes down.Collection: Technology
I've always believed the world would be a better place if more people everywhere have a chance to shape their own future and realize their full potential. I think that is what life is about.Collection: Thinking
Tap into people's dignity and they will do anything for you. Ignore it, and they won't lift a finger.Collection: Wisdom
A vision without resources is an hallucination.Collection: Success
No matter what your profession – doctor, lawyer, architect, accountant – if you are an American, you better be good at the touchy-feely service stuff, because anything that can be digitized can be outsourced to either the smartest or the cheapest producer.Collection: Doctors
If you don't visit a bad neighborhood, it might visit you.Collection: Visits You
No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald'sCollection: Country
If you are self-motivated, wow, this world is tailored for you. The boundaries are all gone. But if you're not self-motivated, this world will be a challenge because the walls, ceilings and floors that protected people are also disappearing. That is what I mean when I say "it is a 401(k) world." Government will do less for you. Companies will do less for you. Unions can do less for you. There will be fewer limits, but also fewer guarantees. Your specific contribution will define your specific benefits much more. Just showing up will not cut it.Collection: Wall
Remember, the difference between the world frozen over, in an ice ball, and the warming period we're in now is just 6 degrees centigrade. A change of just 1 degree can have a huge effect.Collection: World
In a hyper-connected world where average is over, there is one thing we know absolutely for sure: Every good job will require more education.Collection: Jobs
Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction - out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East - is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest.Collection: Party