No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.

Each human being is a citizen of the world. We have many identities, of which one of the identities is our human identity. And that's something that the schools can provide, but that requires again a vision rather than being centers of hatred. It could be an enormous opportunity to give that mission.

I think that so many of our abilities to do things depend on interaction with each other.

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

To say that the whole of the industrial experience of Europe and America just shows the rewards of exploiting the Third World is a gross simplification.

Education makes us the human beings we are. It has major impacts on economic development, on social equity, gender equity. In all kinds of ways, our lives are transformed by education and security. Even if it had not one iota of effect [on] security, it would still remain in my judgment the biggest priority in the world.

the identity of an individual is essentially a function of her choices, rather than the discovery of an immutable attribute