quotes by Thomas L. Friedman

"Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists."
— Thomas L. Friedman

"America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors: extreme freedom of thought, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products."
— Thomas L. Friedman

"Almost all the students who make it to Caltech, one of the best scientific universities in the world, come from public schools. So it can be done.
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— Thomas L. Friedman (The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century)

"The saying in China is "If you're one in a million, there's still 1,300 people just like you.""
— Thomas L. Friedman

"Some would ask what country am I from? We ara supposed to tell the truth, [so] we tell them India. Some thought it was Indiana, not India! Some did not know where India is. I said the country next to Pakistan."
— Thomas L. Friedman (The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century)

"The fact is, parents and schools and cultures can and do shape people. The most important influence in my life, outside of my family, was my high school journalism teacher, Hattie M. Steinberg. She pounded the fundamentals of journalism into her students -- not simply how to write a lead or accurately transcribe a quote but, more important, how to comport yourself in a professional way. She was nearing sixty at the time I had her as my teacher and high school newspaper adviser in the late 1960s. She was the polar opposite of "cool," but we hung around her classroom like it was the malt shop and she was Wolfman Jack. None of us could have articulated it then, but it was because we enjoyed being harangued by her, disciplined by her, and taught by her. She was a woman of clarity and principles in an age of uncertainty. I sit up straight just thinking about her!
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— Thomas L. Friedman (The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century)

"At the end of the day, no amount of investing, no amount of clean electrons, no amount of energy efficiency will save the natural world if we are not paying attention to it - if we are not paying attention to all the things that nature give us for free: clean air, clean water, breathtaking vistas, mountains for skiing, rivers for fishing, oceans for sailing, sunsets for poets, and landscapes for painters. What good is it to have wind-powered lights to brighten the night if you can't see anything green during the day? Just because we can't sell shares in nature doesn't mean it has no value."
— Thomas L. Friedman (Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America)

"So what am I? I guess I would call myself a sober optimist...If you are not sober about the scale of the challenge, then you are not paying attention. But if you are not an optimist, you have no chance of generating the kind of mass movement needed to achieve the needed scale."
— Thomas L. Friedman (Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America)

"Everything I’ve ever gotten in life is largely due to the fact that I was born in this country, America, at this time with these opportunities for its citizens. It is the primary obligation of our generation to turn over a similar America to our kids."
— Thomas L. Friedman