Nobel lecture (2005)
Context: What is more important is that these are not separate or distinct threats. When we scratch the surface, we find them closely connected and interrelated.
We are 1,000 people here today in this august hall. Imagine for a moment that we represent the world's population. These 200 people on my left would be the wealthy of the world, who consume 80 per cent of the available resources. And these 400 people on my right would be living on an income of less than $2 per day.
This underprivileged group of people on my right is no less intelligent or less worthy than their fellow human beings on the other side of the aisle. They were simply born into this fate.
In the real world, this imbalance in living conditions inevitably leads to inequality of opportunity, and in many cases loss of hope. And what is worse, all too often the plight of the poor is compounded by and results in human rights abuses, a lack of good governance, and a deep sense of injustice. This combination naturally creates a most fertile breeding ground for civil wars, organized crime, and extremism in its different forms.
In regions where conflicts have been left to fester for decades, countries continue to look for ways to offset their insecurities or project their 'power'. In some cases, they may be tempted to seek their own weapons of mass destruction, like others who have preceded them.
“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
Quoted on Contemporary art, http://coolturamagazine.com/xabier-lezama-mitologia-vasca/, February 15, 2020.
Roy J. Glauber - Science Video Interview http://vega.org.uk/video/programme/125, interviewed by Edward Goldwyn (2006)
Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 48 (p. 488)
Variant: That there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate on life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind.
Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)
Context: "All the people you meet here have one thing to teach you." Eddie was skeptical. His fists stayed clenched. "What?" he said. "That there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind."
“The values connection is very important. We have to strengthen that connection.”
Source: "In Mongolia, lessons for Obama from Genghis Khan" in The Washington Post https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EvpE54wq368J:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/in-mongolia-lessons-for-obama-from-genghis-khan/2011/06/15/AG7JrOWH_story.html+&cd=38&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (15 June 2011)
Context: If America invests in that, America will have many friends who live on their own, not with bombs or American troops.
