Freedoms are not only the primary ends of development, they are also among its principal means.

If jobs are important, education is important.

Poverty is not really as much of an obstacle to educational expansion as it's sometimes made out to be.

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.

The understanding that women are not inferior across the world, it's something that you can get from school, not only from the book but also from chatting with other kids. It's a big impact. One of the curious things is that even when - and this we found from studies - the schools are doing pretty badly in terms of their education, about mathematics and literature and language, going to school transformed people because I think the action of schooling, the activity, is very important.

The student community of Presidency College was also politically most active.

One of the things that any kind of studies bring out is that the mere act of schooling - getting together, the organization involved, going to classes on time, and there're things being taught, sitting down with others with different backgrounds, chatting with them, and, sometimes when there are big barriers, eating together when there are school meals, which are big things together with a big social impact - they themselves have a major effect.