Thomas Friedman quotes - page 5

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. (Thomas Friedman)
No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's. View quote
Thomas Friedman
Remember, in China when you are one in a million, there are 1,300 other people just like you. View quote
Thomas Friedman
It has always been my view that terrorism is not spawned by the poverty of money; it is spawned by the poverty of dignity. Humiliation is the most underestimated force in international relations and in human relations. It is when people or nations are humiliated that they really lash out and engage in extreme violence. View quote
Thomas Friedman
Communism was a great system for making people equally poor - in fact, there was no better system in the world for that than communism. Capitalism made people unequally rich. View quote
Thomas Friedman
Big breakthroughs happen when what is suddenly possible meets what is desperately needed. View quote
Thomas Friedman
The ideal country in a flat world is the one with no natural resources, because countries with no natural resources tend to dig inside themselves. They try to tap the energy, entrepreneurship, creativity, and intelligence of their own people-men and women-rather than drill an oil well. View quote
Thomas Friedman
What is al Qaeda? It's an open source religious political movement that works off the global supply chain. View quote
Thomas Friedman
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. View quote
Thomas Friedman
When you study history and look at every civilization that has grown up and died off, they all leave one remnant: a major sports colosseum at the heart of their capital. Our fate can be different; but only if we start doing things differently. View quote
Thomas Friedman
In the hyperconnected world, there is only "good” "better” and "best. (Thomas Friedman)
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. View quote
Thomas Friedman
If you don't have an ethic of conservation, you basically have a license to drive a Hummer through the Amazon. View quote
Thomas Friedman
If you followed this economic crisis and you do not think that the world is getting flatter, you are not paying attention. We saw the entire global economy at one time acting totally in sync. The real truth is the world is even flatter than I thought. Our mortgage crisis is killing Deutsche Bank. You still don't think the world is flat? View quote
Thomas Friedman
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. View quote
Thomas Friedman
In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears-and that is our problem. ... The World is Flat. View quote
Thomas Friedman
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. View quote
Thomas Friedman
Reading Europe's press, it is really reassuring to see how warmly Europeans have embraced President Bush's formulation that an "axis of evil" threatens world peace. There's only one small problem. President Bush thinks the axis of evil is Iran, Iraq and North Korea, and the Europeans think it's Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice. View quote
Thomas Friedman