Thomas Friedman Quotes & Sayings

We need to become energy independent or at least aspire to that. — Thomas Friedman

When you go along in life and develop whatever notoriety you do, people begin to relate to you differently, and I'm just always most comfortable with the people I grew up with. — Thomas Friedman

By 'flat' I did not mean that the world is getting equal. I said that more people in more places can now compete, connect and collaborate with equal power and equal tools than ever before. That's why an Indian in Bangalore can take care of the office work of American doctors or read the X-rays of German hospitals. — Thomas Friedman

Whatever you may be thinking when you apply for a job today, you can be sure the employer is asking this: Can this person add value every hour, every day - more than a worker in India, a robot or a computer? Can he or she help my company adapt by not only doing the job today but also reinventing the job for tomorrow? — Thomas Friedman

When I think back on my favorite teachers, I don't remember anymore much of what they taught me, but I sure remember being excited about learning it. What has stayed with me are not the facts they imparted, but the excitement about learning they inspired. — Thomas Friedman

Every sport needs its temple, its cathedral. — Thomas Friedman

Capitalism and political systems - like companies - must constantly evolve to stay vital. — Thomas Friedman

The only engine big enough to impact Mother Nature is Father Greed. — Thomas Friedman

Entrepreneurs don't write a 100-page business plan and execute it one time; they're always experimenting and adapting based on what they learn. — Thomas Friedman

What is al Qaeda? It's an open source religious political movement that works off the global supply chain. — Thomas Friedman

Google attracts so much talent, it can afford to look beyond traditional metrics, like G.P.A. For most young people, though, going to college and doing well is still the best way to master the tools needed for many careers. — Thomas Friedman

Benjamin Netanyahu understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby. — Thomas Friedman

The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention argues that no two countries that are both part of the same global supply chain will ever fight a war as long as they are each part of that supply chain. — Thomas Friedman

I can see a day soon where you'll create your own college degree by taking the best online courses from the best professors from around the world - some computing from Stanford, some entrepreneurship from Wharton, some ethics from Brandeis, some literature from Edinburgh - paying only the nominal fee for the certificates of completion. — Thomas Friedman

Our president's latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline. — Thomas Friedman

No, most of our political elite has not realized that the world is flat. — Thomas Friedman

What every employer is looking for is not someone who can do the job, but someone who can reinvent the job. — Thomas Friedman

I'm a capitalist. I believe in capitalism. But capitalism only works if you have safety nets to deal with people who are naturally left behind and brutalized by it. — Thomas Friedman

The merger of globalization and the I.T. revolution means new products are being phased in and out so fast that companies cannot afford to wait until the end of the year to figure out whether a team leader is doing a good job. — Thomas Friedman

We are led by lawyers who do not understand either technology or balance sheets. — Thomas Friedman

We're going in the wrong direction and I think the only way to counter that is to bring the story home in really concrete ways to people - in ways that kids can understand and non-scientists can understand. — Thomas Friedman

Being really good at 'learning how to learn,' as President Bill Brody of Johns Hopkins put it, will be an enormous asset in an era of rapid change and innovation, when new jobs will be phased in and old ones phased out faster than ever. — Thomas Friedman

We have to be the best global citizens we can be. — Thomas Friedman

The country that owns green, that dominates that industry, is going to have the most energy security, national security, economic security, competitive companies, healthy population and, most of all, global respect. — Thomas Friedman

If you are self-motivated, wow, this world is tailored for you. The boundaries are all gone. But if you're not self-motivated, this world will be a challenge because the walls, ceilings and floors that protected people are also disappearing. That is what I mean when I say "it is a 401(k) world." Government will do less for you. Companies will do less for you. Unions can do less for you. There will be fewer limits, but also fewer guarantees. Your specific contribution will define your specific benefits much more. Just showing up will not cut it. — Thomas Friedman

Lord knows there's a lot of bad news in the world today to get you down, but there is one big thing happening that leaves me incredibly hopeful about the future, and that is the budding revolution in global online higher education. — Thomas Friedman

Saudi hijackers first came into contact with al-Qaeda and went through Terrorism 101 when they signed up for the jihad in Afghanistan. — Thomas Friedman

I am hoping, though, that many of them have kids, who, when they have a moment to take a break from their iPods, Internet, or Google, will explain to their parents running the country just how the world is being flattened. — Thomas Friedman

Geopolitics is all about leverage. We cannot make ourselves safer abroad unless we change our behavior at home. — Thomas Friedman

If you followed this economic crisis and you do not think that the world is getting flatter, you are not paying attention. We saw the entire global economy at one time acting totally in sync. The real truth is the world is even flatter than I thought. Our mortgage crisis is killing Deutsche Bank. You still don't think the world is flat? — Thomas Friedman

When you lose your job, the unemployment rate isn't four percent, it's 100 percent. — Thomas Friedman

When I wrote 'The World Is Flat,' I said the world is flat. Yeah, we're all connected. Facebook didn't exist; Twitter was a sound; the cloud was in the sky; 4G was a parking place; LinkedIn was a prison; applications were what you sent to college; and Skype, for most people, was a typo. — Thomas Friedman

The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. — Thomas 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 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 Friedman

Basically all the world's computer parts come from the same supply chain that runs from Korea, down through coastal China, over to Taiwan, and down to Malaysia. — Thomas Friedman

The Golden Straitjacket is the defining political-economic garment of globalization. [ ... ] The tighter you wear it, the more gold it produces. — Thomas Friedman

We say that necessity is the mother of invention, and no country has more of a necessity to develop clean power than China. — Thomas Friedman

Natural gas emits only half the carbon dioxide of coal when burned, but if methane leaks when oil companies extract it from the ground in a sloppy manner - methane is far more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide - it can wipe out all the advantages of natural gas over coal. — Thomas Friedman

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

When it comes to dealing with the world's climate and energy challenges, I have a simple rule: change America, change the world. — Thomas 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 Friedman

Optimists are usually wrong. But all the great change in history, positive change, was done by optimists. — Thomas Friedman

There is something more severe than the problem with Thomas Friedman, which can be generalized to represent someone causing action while being completely unaccountable for his words. — Thomas Friedman

McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. — Thomas 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 Friedman

My mom enlisted in the U.S. Navy in World War II, and my parents actually bought our home thanks to the loan she got through the GI Bill. — Thomas Friedman

America still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society - in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage. — Thomas Friedman

We need better neighbors, neighbors that care about the schools in their neighborhood whether they have kids in them or not, because they know that the health and vitality of that neighborhood depends on it. — Thomas 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 Friedman

I have a daughter who is a sophomore in college and another who is in the 11th grade of high school. — Thomas Friedman

You win the presidency by connecting with the American people's gut insecurities and aspirations. You win with a concept. — Thomas Friedman

We've given Iraq six months and I don't think things are really working out, so we should probably bring our troops home. — Thomas 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 Friedman

You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we'll look back at the first decade of the 21st century when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we'd crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once? — Thomas Friedman

Do you know what my favorite renewable fuel is? An ecosystem for innovation. — Thomas Friedman

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

In Globalization 1.0, which began around 1492, the world went from size large to size medium. In Globalization 2.0, the era that introduced us to multinational companies, it went from size medium to size small. And then around 2000 came Globalization 3.0, in which the world went from being small to tiny. — Thomas Friedman

Change your leaders, not your light bulbs. — Thomas Friedman

Sometimes, when my wife and I were going out to dinner, I would take my laptop with me and work in the car, so as to take advantage of the half hour going and coming. — Thomas Friedman

John Kennedy led us on a journey to discover the moon. Obama needs to lead us on a journey to rediscover, rebuild and reinvent our own backyard. — Thomas Friedman

Yes, the world is now flat for publishing as well. — Thomas Friedman

Every golf course should have its carbon rating on the scorecard, alongside its Course Rating, Slope, par and yardage. — Thomas Friedman

Guantanamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty. — Thomas Friedman

Many authors hate to go on grinding book tours. But I've always found it a useful way to be a foreign correspondent in America and take the pulse of the country. — Thomas Friedman

I've been a critic of the antiglobalization movement, and they've been a critic of me, but the one thing I respect about the movement is their authentic energy. These are not people who don't care about the world. — Thomas Friedman

Hope and optimism aren't just attitudes, they are life strategies. — Thomas Friedman

I think we have lost our groove as a country. One of the reasons was the attack on 9/11. We got knocked off our game. From a country that always exported hope we went into the business of exporting fear. — Thomas Friedman

A golf course should aspire to generate as much energy as it consumes - golf should be leading the way toward energy net zero. — Thomas Friedman

Until we fully understand what turned two brothers who allegedly perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings into murderers, it is hard to make any policy recommendation other than this: We need to redouble our efforts to make America stronger and healthier so it remains a vibrant counterexample to whatever bigoted ideology may have gripped these young men ... And the best place to start is with a carbon tax. — Thomas Friedman

You'll know the green revolution has been won when the word 'green' disappears. — Thomas Friedman

Golf has an ambivalent relationship with the environment. On one hand, it's a great preserver of open spaces. Golf doesn't pave the world - it helps to green the world. But the downside is, it uses a lot of fertilizer, pesticides and water. — Thomas Friedman

The financial crisis just made the hole deeper, which is why our stimulus needs to be both big and smart, both financially and educationally stimulating. It needs to be able to produce not only more shovel-ready jobs and shovel-ready workers, but more Google-ready jobs and Windows-ready and knowledge-ready workers. — Thomas Friedman

Desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world — Thomas Friedman

I said that more people in more places can now compete, connect and collaborate with equal power and equal tools than ever before. — Thomas Friedman

There's nothing like living a little close to the edge that gets you motivated to ensure that you get the credentials you need to succeed. — Thomas Friedman

I firmly believe that the next great breakthrough in bioscience could come from a 15-year-old who downloads the human genome in Egypt. — Thomas Friedman

There's no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student's achievement, and we need to recruit, train and reward more such teachers. But here's what some new studies are also showing: We need better parents. Parents more focused on their children's education can also make a huge difference in a student's achievement. — Thomas Friedman

There is no substitute for face-to-face reporting and research. — Thomas Friedman

Something really big happened in the world's wiring in the last decade, but it was obscured by the financial crisis and post-9/11. We went from a connected world to a hyperconnected world. I'm always struck that Facebook , Twitter, 4G, iPhones, iPads, ubiquitous wireless and Web-enabled cellphones, the cloud, Big Data, cellphone apps and Skype did not exist or were in their infancy a decade ago. — Thomas Friedman

I'm from Minnesota. I'm optimistic. I mean, that's just who I am. — Thomas Friedman

Inspiring conduct has so much more of an impact than coercing it. — Thomas Friedman

Supply chains cannot tolerate even 24 hours of disruption. So if you lose your place in the supply chain because of wild behavior you could lose a lot. It would be like pouring cement down one of your oil wells. — Thomas Friedman

I love America. I think it's the best country in the world. But I also think we're not tending to our sauce. — Thomas Friedman

Iraq may still have a decent outcome ... but even if it becomes Switzerland, we overpaid for it. — Thomas Friedman

Two things are going on at the same time with the flattening of the world: The relentless quest for efficiency is squeezing some of the fat out of life. — Thomas Friedman

Our kids are going to be so angry with us one day. We've charged their future on our Visa cards. — Thomas Friedman

Your boss doesn't care what you know, because the Google machine knows everything. Your boss cares about what you can do with what you know. That's the only thing your boss will pay for. — Thomas 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 Friedman

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

The first rule of holes is when you're in one, stop digging. When you're in three, bring a lot of shovels. — Thomas Friedman

Nature is regulating our climate for free. Mother Nature, she's been doing that for free, for a long, long time. Now do you really want to get in there and do geo-engineering and all this kind of stuff? — Thomas Friedman

Remember, in China when you are one in a million, there are 1,300 other people just like you. — Thomas Friedman

Capitalism makes people unequally rich. Communism makes people equally poor. — Thomas Friedman

No matter where I go - London, Beirut, Jerusalem, Washington, Beijing, or Bangalore - I'm always looking to rediscover that land of ten thousand lakes where politics actually worked to make people's lives better, not pull them apart. — Thomas Friedman

I basically did all the library research for this book on Google, and it not only saved me enormous amounts of time but actually gave me a much richer offering of research in a shorter time. — Thomas Friedman

Several technological and political forces have converged, and that has produced a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration without regard to geography or distance - or soon, even language. — Thomas 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 Friedman

What we have in the Bush team is a faith-based administration. It launched a faith-based war in Iraq, on the basis of faith-based intelligence, with a faith-based plan for Iraqi reconstruction, supported by faith-based tax cuts to generate faith-based revenues. — Thomas Friedman

A vision without resources is an hallucination. — Thomas Friedman