Ending poverty and ensuring sustainability are the defining challenges of our time. Energy is central to both of them.

Unless you invest in people, you are not going to see growth in the long term, the medium term, and maybe even the short term.

A lot of young people dont think they can make a difference. Thats really what I am at Dartmouth to do. Im there to tell the young people, Look, a few committed souls can change the world.

Today there are a lot places where people say they're just hopeless. If I can come from a hopeless country, get an education, become a hyphenated American and become president of the World Bank, it's my moral duty to make sure that every single person on the planet has that opportunity.

When you're working on development issues, optimism is not always based on rational analysis, often it is a moral choice.

We need to have a plan equal to the challenge.

I want to eradicate poverty. I think that theres a tremendous passion for that inside the World Bank.