Thank You for Being Late Quotes

“So, as I wrote in the paperback edition of The Lexus and the Olive Tree, I started telling anyone who asked “Is God in cyberspace?” that the answer is “no”—but He wants to be there. But only we can bring Him there by how we act there. God celebrates a universe with such human freedom because He knows that the only way He is truly manifest in the world is not if He intervenes but if we all choose sanctity and morality in an environment where we are free to choose anything. As Rabbi Marx put it, “In the postbiblical Jewish view of the world, you cannot be moral unless you are totally free. If you are not free, you are really not empowered, and if you are not empowered the choices that you make are not entirely your own. What God says about cyberspace is that you are really free there, and I hope you make the right choices, because if you do I will be present.” The”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“In other words, he explained, unless we bear witness to God’s presence by our own good deeds, He is not present.”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“Rabbi Marx pointed out to me that there is a verse in Isaiah that says, “You are my witness. I am the Lord,”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“When I asked the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, “Is God in cyberspace?” he joked at first that God must be in cyberspace because every time he is in the London subway, “I hear people saying into their cell phones, ‘Oh God, why doesn’t this work!’” Here”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“She would initiate three “races to the top” from the federal level—with prizes of $100 million, $75 million, and $50 million—to vastly accelerate innovations in social technologies: Which state can come up with the best platform for retraining workers? Which state can design a pilot city or community of the future where everything from self-driving vehicles and ubiquitous Wi-Fi to education, clean energy, affordable housing, health care, and green spaces is all integrated into a gigabit-enabled platform? Which city can come up with the best program for turning its public schools into sixteen-hour-a-day community centers, adult learning centers, and public health centers? We need to take advantage of the fact that we have fifty states and hundreds of cities able to experiment and hasten social innovation. In”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“But it is very difficult to persuade people to do something if you can’t connect the dots for them in a convincing way—why this action will produce this result, because this is how the gears and pulleys of the Machine work. And,”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“We have never seen a time when more people could make history, record history, publicize history, and amplify history all at the same time,” remarked Dov Seidman. In”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“Patience wasn’t just the absence of speed. It was space for reflection and thought.” We are generating more information and knowledge than ever today, “but knowledge is only good if you can reflect on it.”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“In 2014, when the Ebola virus broke out in West Africa, it was the American military that sent in three thousand troops and $3 billion to wipe it out. There was no Russian or Chinese aid mission that jumped into the breach. Yes,”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“I have spent a lot of time, in America and abroad, covering the struggles of different groups to assert ownership over their societies and the consequences of their lack of it. And I am forever struck at how quickly ownership can change behaviors and enable adaptation, self-propulsion, resilience, and healthy interdependencies. In”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“Andreas Schleicher, who runs the Programme for International Student Assessment exams, a global evaluation of scholastic performance, observed that those scoring highest are Asian countries that have “ownership cultures—a high degree of professional autonomy for teachers … where teachers get to participate in shaping standards and curriculum and have ample time for continuous professional development.”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“Ownership is the one thing that fixes more things so other things can be made easier to fix,” argues the education expert Stefanie Sanford of the College Board. More often than not, she says, when citizens feel a sense of ownership over their country, when teachers feel a sense of ownership over their classrooms, when students feel a sense of ownership over their education, more good things tend to happen than bad. You get outcomes that are much more internally generated and therefore self-sustaining. And where ownership doesn’t exist, where people feel like renters or transients, more bad things tend to happen. When”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“All I know is that since becoming a reporter in 1978, I have spent a lot of my career covering the difference between peoples, societies, leaders, and cultures focused on learning from “the other”—to catch up after falling behind—and those who feel humiliated by “the other,” by their contact with strangers, and lash out rather than engage in the hard work of adaptation. This theme has so permeated my reporting that I have been tempted at times to change my business card to read: “Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times Global Humiliation Correspondent.” There”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“Of course, the speed at which any society embraces these strategies will always be a product of the interplay between politics, culture, and leadership. Culture shapes a society’s political responses, and its leadership and politics, in turn, shape culture. What exactly is culture? I like this concise definition offered by BusinessDictionary.com: culture is the “pattern of responses discovered, developed, or invented during the group’s history of handling problems which arise from interactions among its members, and between them and their environment. These responses are considered the correct way to perceive, feel, think, and act, and are passed on to the new members through immersion and teaching. Culture determines what is acceptable or unacceptable, important or unimportant, right or wrong, workable or unworkable.” One”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“Megginson’s dictum: “The civilization that is able to survive is the one that is able to adapt to the changing physical, social, political, moral, and spiritual environment in which it finds itself.”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“The beetle, endemic to Africa’s Namib desert—where there is just 1.3 cm of rainfall a year—has inspired a few proof-of-concepts in the academic community, but this is the first time a self-filling water bottle has been proposed. The beetle survives by collecting condensation from the ocean breeze on the hardened shell of its wings. The shell is covered in tiny bumps that are water attracting (hydrophilic) at their tips and water-repelling (hydrophobic) at their sides. The beetle extends and aims the wings at incoming sea breezes to catch humid air; tiny droplets 15 to 20 microns in diameter eventually accumulate on its back and run straight down towards its mouth. NBD”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“Mother Nature is not a living being, but she is a biogeophysical, rationally functioning, complex system of oceans, atmosphere, forests, rivers, soils, plants, and animals that has evolved on Planet Earth since the first hints of life emerged. She has survived the worst of times and thrived in the best of them for nearly four billion years by learning to absorb endless shocks, climate changes, surprises, and even an asteroid or two. That alone makes Mother Nature an important mentor.”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“Before taking out my blank sheet of paper, though, I did one vitally important thing: I looked for a mentor. I asked myself, who is the “person” with the most experience absorbing climate changes and retaining resilience and continuing to flourish? The answer came easily: I know a woman who has been doing that for about 3.8 billion years. Her name is Mother Nature. I”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“QI’s research suggested that the quote emerged over time from a speech delivered by a Louisiana State University business professor, Leon C. Megginson, at the convention of the Southwestern Social Science Association in 1963. Megginson reportedly said: Yes, change is the basic law of nature. But the changes wrought by the passage of time affect individuals and institutions in different ways. According to Darwin’s Origin of Species, it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself. Applying this theoretical concept to us as individuals, we can state that the civilization that is able to survive is the one that is able to adapt to the changing physical, social, political, moral, and spiritual environment in which it finds itself. Thank you, Professor Megginson! That”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“When the necessary is impossible but the impossible is necessary, when no power wants to own the World of Disorder but, increasingly, no power can ignore it, it is going to take these hybrid combinations of drones and walls, aircraft carriers and Peace Corps volunteers, plus chickens, gardens, and Webs, to begin to create stability in the age of accelerations. Since”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“Gates put it to me this way: “For good stuff to happen, it requires a lot of things to go well—you need many pieces to get stability right.” None of it is going to happen overnight, but we need to work with the forces of order that do still exist in the World of Disorder to start building a different trajectory, beginning with all the basics: basic education, basic infrastructure—roads, ports, electricity, telecom, mobile banking—basic agriculture, and basic governance. The goal, said Gates, is to get these frail states to a level of stability where enough women and girls are getting educated and empowered for population growth to stabilize, where farmers can feed their families, and where you “start to get a reverse brain drain” as young people feel that they have a chance to connect to and contribute and benefit from today’s global flows by staying at home and not emigrating. Believe”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“we cannot reverse these trends on our own; the will has to come from within these societies. But we can raise the odds that they will do it themselves by raising the number of people with the will to do so. What America and the West can do—and have not done nearly enough of—is to invest in and amplify the islands of decency and the engines of capacity-building in countries in, or bordering on, the World of Disorder. When we invest in the tools that enable young people to realize their full potential, we are countering the spread of humiliation, which is the single biggest motivator for people to go out and break things. In”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“The sudden and massive influx of refugees from Africa and the Middle East has overwhelmed the absorptive capacity of the European Union and triggered a populist-nationalist backlash, while also prompting the EU to start limiting its policy of free movement of people between countries. The June 2016 British vote to withdraw from the EU was driven in no small degree by anti-immigration sentiment. And”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“In the Cold War, Russia effectively occupied all of Eastern Europe, suppressing not only its freedoms but also its ethnic conflicts. For five centuries the Ottomans managed most of the Middle East in the same way. But today we live in a postimperial and a postcolonial world. No great power wants to occupy anybody. As we’ve seen, the major powers have all learned the hard way that when you occupy another country all that you win is a bill. It is much easier to import a country’s labor and natural resources—or their brainpower online—than it is to take them over. Also,”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“In short, we have to face two fundamental facts about geopolitics today: Fact #1: The necessary is impossible. Fact #2: The impossible is necessary. That is, while we cannot repair the wide World of Disorder on our own, we also cannot just ignore it. It metastasizes in an interdependent world. If we don’t visit the World of Disorder in the age of accelerations, it will visit us. This is especially true when you know that the age of accelerations is going to continue to hammer frail states and produce migration flows, particularly from Africa and the Middle East toward Europe, as well as more super-empowered breakers. So”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“As the Harvard University strategist Graham Allison summed it up: “Historically, there has always been a gap between people’s individual anger and what they could do with their anger. But thanks to modern technology, and the willingness of people to commit suicide, really angry individuals can now kill millions of people if they can get the right materials.” And that is becoming steadily easier with the globalization of flows and the rise of 3-D printing, by which you can build almost anything in your basement, if it can fit. In”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“observes the veteran international pollster Craig Charney, that while the Internet “improves the ability to connect, it is no substitute for political organizations, culture, or leadership—and spontaneous movements tend to be weakest in all of these.” Many Arab Awakening efforts ultimately failed because they could not build an organization and politics that could translate their progressive ideas into a governing majority.”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“said Seidman. When “freedom from” outstrips “freedom to,” amplified actors in the grip of destructive ideas “will cause more harm and destruction, unless they become inspired and enlisted in constructive human endeavors,” he argued. “They will be like inmates on the loose.” No”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“On June 20, 2016, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which tracks forced displacement worldwide based on data from governments, partner agencies, and UNHCR’s own reporting, issued a report stating that a total of 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, compared with 59.5 million just twelve months earlier.”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“in October 2014, the United States was inundated with more than fifty thousand unaccompanied children from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. “They’re fleeing from threats and violence in their home countries,” noted Vox.com, “where things have gotten so bad that many families believe that they have no choice but to send their children on the long, dangerous journey north.” Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador are among the most environmentally degraded and deforested regions in Central America. They cut their forests; we got their kids. It”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations