Thomas L. Friedman Quotes

62 Sourced Quotes

That's right-the striking thing about greenhouse gases is the diversity of sources that emit them. A herd of cattle belching can be worse than highway full of hummers.

Thomas L. Friedman
America didn't become the richest country in the world by practicing socialism, or the strongest country by denigrating its governing institutions, or the most talent-filled country by stoking fear of immigrants. It got here via the motto "E Pluribus Unum" — Out of Many, One.

Thomas L. Friedman
What we're gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war.

Thomas L. Friedman
I attended public school with the same group of kids from K through 12.

Thomas L. Friedman
We're at the beginning of, I think, the decisive, I would say, six months in Iraq, OK, because I feel like this election — you know, I felt from the beginning Iraq was going to be ultimately, Charlie, what Iraqis make of it.

Thomas L. Friedman
Only if you give the Palestinians something to lose is there a hope that they will agree to moderate their demands.… I believe that as soon as Ahmed has a seat in the bus, he will limit his demands.

Thomas L. Friedman
Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months — probably sooner — whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're going to have to just let this play out.

Thomas L. Friedman
American young people have got to understand from an early age that the world pays off on results, not on effort. Not everyone should win a prize no matter where he or she finishes.

Thomas L. Friedman
A 2011 report produced by Forrester Research estimated that the revenue generated through the sales of smartphone and tablet applications will reach $38 billion annually by 2015. Think about that: An industry that did not exist in 2006 will be generating $38 billion in revenues within a decade....

Thomas L. Friedman
Once people get a taste for whatever you want to call it - economic independence, a better lifestyle, and a better life for their children - they grab on to that and don't want to give it up.

Thomas L. Friedman
Just because we can't sell shares in nature doesn't mean it has no value.

Thomas L. Friedman
We have to fight the terrorists as if there were no rules and preserve our open society as if there were no terrorists.

Thomas L. Friedman
In the future, how we educate our children may prove to be more important than how much we educate them.

Thomas L. Friedman
I would say that in 2000, we understand as much about how today's system of globalization is going to work as we understood about how the Cold War system was going to work in 1946.

Thomas L. Friedman
We have twice elected a black man whose grandfather was a Muslim and who defeated a woman to run against a Mormon! Who does that? That is such a source of strength, such a magnet for the best talent in the world.

Thomas L. Friedman
Communism was a great system for making people equally poor - in fact, there was no better system in the world for that than communism. Capitalism made people unequally rich.

Thomas L. Friedman
When you study history and look at every civilization that has grown up and died off, they all leave one remnant: a major sports colosseum at the heart of their capital. Our fate can be different; but only if we start doing things differently.

Thomas L. Friedman
Can Iraqis get this government together? If they do, I think the American public will continue to want to support the effort there to try to produce a decent, stable Iraq. But if they don't, then I think the bottom is going to fall out of public support here for the whole Iraq endeavor. So one way or another, I think we're in the end game in the sense it's going to be decided in the next weeks or months whether there's an Iraq there worth investing in. And that is something only Iraqis can tell us.

Thomas L. Friedman
We've teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it's going to come together.

Thomas L. Friedman
When I was growing up, my parents told me, 'Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving.' I tell my daughters, 'Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.'

Thomas L. Friedman
Was it Netanyahu, whose lust to hold onto his seat of power is only surpassed by his lack of imagination to find a secure way to separate from the Palestinians? Bibi won: He's now a historic figure — the founding father of the one-state solution.

Thomas L. Friedman
The historical debate is over. The answer is free-market capitalism.

Thomas L. Friedman
I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq.

Thomas L. Friedman
The only thing I am certain of is that in the wake of this election, Iraq will be what Iraqis make of it — and the next six months will tell us a lot. I remain guardedly hopeful.

Thomas L. Friedman
Never before in the history of the planet have so many people, on their own, had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people.

Thomas L. Friedman
No matter what your profession – doctor, lawyer, architect, accountant – if you are an American, you better be good at the touchy-feely service stuff, because anything that can be digitized can be outsourced to either the smartest or the cheapest producer.

Thomas L. Friedman
Of Tom Friedman:
One might ask what the reaction would be if a prominent journalist urged South Africans to "give Sambo a seat in the bus," or proposed that Jews be granted something to lose, because "if you give Hymie a seat in the bus, he may limit his demands." Promotion to chief diplomatic correspondent, perhaps?

Thomas L. Friedman
The poverty fighters resent the climate-change folks; climate folks hold summits without reference to biodiversity; the food advocates resist the biodiversity protectors. They all need to go on safari together.

Thomas L. Friedman
I think we're in the end game there, in the next three to six months, Bob. We've got for the first time an Iraqi government elected on the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Either they're going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that we aspire to in the near term, in which case America will stick with it, or they're not, in which case I think the bottom's going to fall out.

Thomas L. Friedman
The British vote by a narrow majority to leave the European Union is not the end of the world — but it does show us how we can get there.

Thomas L. Friedman