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Andre Geim

Condensed matter physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics, 2010

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
Instant information about everything and everyone often allows an individual opinion to compete with consensus and paranoia with evidence. It is a time when one blunt honest statement can finish a life-long political career, and one opinionated journalist can bully a government or a royal family. Science is not immune from such pressures. For example, how many Nobel prize-winning experiments – you think – would have been stopped, if ethics or health-and-safety regulations at that time were as zealous as they are today? I can think of more than a few.

Nobel Banquet, Stockholm City Hall, Nobel Prize Outreach, 10 December 2010 source ↗

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John Banville Novelist; winner of the Booker Prize, 2005
Anyway, what’s the point of a plot, you know? Has life got a plot? Not that I know of. So why should a novel have a plot? But it has to have some kind of story. It has to have some kind of structure.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 18 October 2017 source ↗
Mohamed ElBaradei Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 1997-2009; Nobel Peace Prize 2005
In all this we can only move forward, if we work in a multilateral setting; and that also is another dimension of this – that is recognises the importance of multilateralism. As the citation says, “broadest international co-operation”. We can only win together or lose together, Marika. I think that’s something I have been saying for quite a while and you probably will hear me say more of that, as we go forward.
Recorded Nobel Prize telephone interview, 7 October 2005, 7 October 2005 source ↗
John C. Bogle Founder of The Vanguard Group, 1974
Over the past two centuries, our nation has moved from being an agricultural economy, to a manufacturing economy, to a service economy, and now to a predominantly financial economy. But our financial economy, by definition, subtracts from the value created by our productive businesses. Think about it: while the owners of business enjoy the dividend yields and earnings growth that our capitalistic system creates, those who play in the financial markets capture those investment gains only after the costs of financial intermediation are deducted. Thus, while investing in American business is a winner's game, beating the stock market before those costs is a zero-sum game. But after intermediation costs are deducted, beating the market—for all of us as a group—becomes a loser's game.
Recorded Georgetown University commencement, Georgetown University / johncbogle.com, 18 May 2007 source ↗
Warren Buffett Chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, 1970–2025
The strategy we've adopted precludes our following standard diversification dogma. Many pundits would therefore say the strategy must be riskier than that employed by more conventional investors. We disagree. We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics before buying into it.
Recorded His letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in the 1993 annual report, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., February 1994 source ↗

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Question What fills you with the most pride? Identity & self
OK, but speaking seriously, I’m actually quite proud of my IgNobel Prize – not because of IgNobel Prize – it’s a more subtle association. Essentially, yeah, IgNobel Prize is given for something which forces people to smile. ... with IgNobel Prize they ask you a few weeks in advance whether you are ready to accept this prize or not. So we considered hard and, at the end, we had courage to accept this IgNobel Prize, yeah. So, I’m proud that I had enough courage to do that and I do not regret accepting it.
Recorded Adam Smith, Telephone interview following the announcement of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics, The Nobel Prize, 5 October 2010 source ↗

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