How do we give credible hope to the billion poorest people in the world? It requires compassion to get ourselves started, and enlightened self-interest to get serious... If economic divergence continues, combined with global integration, it will build a nightmare for our children.

Most conduct is guided by norms rather than by laws. Norms are voluntary and are effective because they are enforced by peer pressure.

Change in the societies at the very bottom must come predominantly from within; we cannot impose it on them.

Elections determine who is in power, but they do not determine how power is used.

At the core of all successful societies are procedures for blocking the advancement of bad men

Poverty is not intrinsically a trap, otherwise we would all still be poor.

There is a simple way of avoiding excess risk-taking by the managers of our financial institutions. It is to make it a crime ... had a crime for reckless management of a financial institution been on the books, Northern Rock and RBS would not have blown up.