But the idea that I should be a teacher and a researcher of some sort did not vary over the years.

Even though I’m pro-globalization, I have to say thank God for the anti-globalization movement. They’re putting important issues on the agenda.

Nearly everywhere Buddhism went, there had been a higher level of literacy, even in miserable Burma, not to mention Thailand and Sri Lanka.

Progress is more plausibly judged by the reduction of deprivation than by the further enrichment of the opulent

You have to be interested in inequality. The issue of inequality and that of poverty are not separable.

Gender inequality is not one problem, it's a collection of problems.

South Korea at the end of the Second World War had a very low level of literacy. But suddenly, like in Japan, they determined they were going in that direction. In 20 years' time, they had transformed themselves. So when people go on saying that it's all because of perennial culture, which you cannot change, that's not the way the South Korean economy was viewed before the war ended. But again within 30 years, people went on saying there's an ancient culture in Korea that has been pro-education, which is true.