PAUL COLLIER

You are a citizen, and citizenship carries responsibilities.

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

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

Without an informed electorate, politicians will continue to use the bottom billion merely for photo opportunities, rather than promoting real transformation.

Halve the income of the country and you double the risk of civil war.

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.

A flagrant grievance is to a rebel movement what an image is to a business.

Politicians would only move beyond gestures once there was a critical mass of informed citizens.

Migration has been politicized before it has been analyzed.

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.

A flagrant grievance is to a rebel movement what an image is to a business.

Half of all civil wars are post conflict relapses.

Halve the income of the country and you double the risk of civil war.

Farm subsidies are a waste of money.

Preventive policies are greatly superior to reactive ones.

Migrants are essentially escaping from countries with dysfunctional social models.

Migrants bring their culture with them… unsurprisingly, Nigerian immigrants to other societies tend to be untrusting and opportunistic.

Without an informed electorate, politicians will continue to use the bottom billion merely for photo opportunities, rather than promoting real transformation.

Migration has been politicized before it has been analyzed.

Politicians would only move beyond gestures once there was a critical mass of informed citizens.

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

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

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.

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

You are a citizen, and citizenship carries responsibilities.

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.

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

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