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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Director-General of the World Trade Organization from 2021; Finance Minister of Nigeria, 2003–2006 and 2011–2015

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
And it brings us to the debate that has been going on here: aid versus private sector, aid versus trade, etc. And someone stood up to say that one of the frustrating things is that it's been a simplistic debate. And that's not what the debate should be about. That's engaging in the wrong debate. The issue here is how do we get a partnership that involves government donors, the private sector and ordinary African people taking charge of their own lives? How do we combine all this?

TEDGlobal 2007, Arusha, 7 June 2007 source ↗

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Nick Cave Songwriter, musician and novelist
Many creative people, especially the young, may feel their chaotic or disordered relationship with the world is indispensable to their creative freedom. The more anarchic, the better! However, after considerable fieldwork in this area, I have yet to find it so. I have come to understand that the muscle of the imagination is strengthened through resistance, discipline and order.
Recorded Jai, The Red Hand Files, Issue #302, 28 October 2024 source ↗
Terence Tao Mathematician; Fields Medallist, 2006
AI without validation is too unreliable to be of use in any serious application.
Recorded Quanta Magazine reporter, Reported interview, Quanta Magazine, 13 April 2026 source ↗
Elinor Ostrom Political economist; laureate of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, 2009
Yes, but not with a formula. So there are many, many efforts now to decentralize and they create a rigid formula and give people rules from on top and say, 'Now it's yours.' And that isn't worked very well either. … And, you think about the variety. If you look at a countryside, think of the variety out there in terms of the ecological variety. Well, if people are going to manage ecological variety, no single set of rules will work in a semi-arid versus a tropical-wet region. They have to be different.
Recorded Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded immediately after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 12 October 2009 source ↗
Rahul Dravid India Test and one-day international cricketer, 1996–2012; later India head coach
Let us not be so satisfied with the present, with deals and finances in hand that we get blindsided. Everything that has given cricket its power and influence in the world of sports has started from that fan in the stadium. They deserve our respect and let us not take them for granted. Disrespecting fans is disrespecting the game.
Recorded Bradman Oration, Anzac Hall, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, ESPNcricinfo, 14 December 2011 source ↗

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Question What does everyone in your world seem to agree on that you think is wrong? Values & belief
What I want to do this morning is share with you a couple of stories and talk about a different Africa. Already this morning there were some allusions to the Africa that you hear about all the time: the Africa of HIV/AIDS, the Africa of malaria, the Africa of poverty, the Africa of conflict, and the Africa of disasters. While it is true that those things are going on, there's an Africa that you don't hear about very much. And sometimes I'm puzzled, and I ask myself why. This is the Africa that is changing, that Chris alluded to. This is the Africa of opportunity. This is the Africa where people want to take charge of their own futures and their own destinies.
Recorded TED2007, 3 March 2007 source ↗

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