A country's wealth need not depend on natural resources, it may even ultimately benefit from their absence
The greatest resource of all is Man
What government has to do is to set the framework for human talent to flourish.
Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 118
“There is a conspiracy to do us in. Why?… They see us as a threat to the rest of Singapore.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore
on why Human Rights Groups criticise Singapore's governance (Agence France-Presse, July 12 2008, http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=124971) <br class="br">2000s
“What is the secret to the success of the show?”
Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
"Oprah Winfrey Show Finale" in CBS (25 May 2011)
Context: People often ask me: "What is the secret to the success of the show?" "How it lasted 25 years?" I none jokingly say: "My team and Jesus", because nothing but the Hand of God has made this possible for me. For all of you who get railed up when I mentioned God and you wanna know which God am I talking about, I am talking about the same one you talk about, I am talking about the Alpha and Omega, the Omniscience, the Unprecedented, the Ultimate Consciousness, the Source, the Force, the all of everything that is, The One and Only G-O-D, that's what I am talking about...
Gjorge Ivanov (1960) President of Macedonia
Interview with the Macedonian President Dr. Gjorge Ivanov http://www.yttube.com/watch?v=Z7tMLoK9PDo
“Eighty percent of success is showing up.”
Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
“Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal.”
Charles Buxton (1823–1871) English brewer, philanthropist, writer and politician
Source: Notes of Thought (1883), p. 25.
Charles Darwin book Insectivorous Plants
Detractors sometimes claim Darwin thought that the cell was an undifferentiated mass of protoplasm. Anyone reading the passage above will realize that Darwin thought no such thing. <br class="br">Source: Insectivorous Plants (1875), chapter III: "Aggregation of the Protoplasm within the Cells of the Tentacles", page 40 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=55&itemID=F1217&viewtype=image
David Hume (1711–1776) Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian
Letter to Henry Home (9 February 1848), quoted in J. Y. T. Greig, The Letters of David Hume: Volume I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), p. 111
Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet
Letter to Sister Mary James Power (1 October 1934); published in The Wild God of the World : An Anthology of Robinson Jeffers (2003), edited by Albert Gelpi, p. 189 - 190
Context: I think that one may contribute (ever so slightly) to the beauty of things by making one's own life and environment beautiful, as far as one's power reaches. This includes moral beauty, one of the qualities of humanity, though it seems not to appear elsewhere in the universe. But I would have each person realize that his contribution is not important, its success not really a matter for exultation nor its failure for mourning; the beauty of things is sufficient without him.
(An office of tragic poetry is to show that there is beauty in pain and failure as much as in success and happiness.)
Steve Blank (1953) American businessman
Philadelphia University Commencement speech NPR: "The Best Commencement Speeches, Ever" http://apps.npr.org/commencement/speech/steve-blank-philadelphia-university-2011/. May 14, 2011.
