Human life consists of doing certain things ... to take part in the life of the community; to be able to talk about subjects that interest me and there freedom of speech comes into it.

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

Human life depends not only on income but also on social opportunities, [for example] what the state does for educating.

We live in a world where there is a need for pluralistic institutions and for recognizing different types of freedom, economic, social, cultural, and political, which are interrelated.

An Arab activist can take pride in the Arab heritage of mathematics and science or he can take pride in his religion, and there's pride to be taken in both. But one of them could be exploited much more easily and has been in the context of world conflict. And the other is very difficult to do on the grounds that science and literature and mathematics have been among the uniting factors in the history of the world.

Famines occur under a colonial administration, like the British Raj in India or for that matter in Ireland, or under military dictators in one country after another, like Somalia and Ethiopia, or in one-party states like the Soviet Union and China.

I think East Asian countries, I think they're very fortunate to have Buddhism survive as a strong influence because right from the time when Buddha himself, 2,500 years ago, made the point about the importance of education, and the word "Buddha" also means enlighten[ed] or educated. So all the Buddhist countries, not only Japan and Korea and China and Hong Kong and Thailand but also even Burma and Sri Lanka, had a higher level of education.