Boutros Boutros-Ghali Quotes

Most people who are selling their mineral rights, this is a once-in-a-lifetime transaction. The people who are buying, the landmen who are coming in, do it every day. So there's a little inequity there about knowledge.

Pakistan is riddled with problems that are rooted in the disproportionate power of the state. Aid has only boosted that power.

If budget planning requires gathering information from people who may not always have the incentive to disclose that information, then the principles of mechanism design can definitely be of use in such planning.

The fact that you needed to know was not known at the time that the now known need to know, was known. Therefore, those that needed to advise and inform the Home Secretary perhaps felt the information he needed as to whether to inform the highest authority of the known information was not yet known and therefore there was no authority for the authority to be informed because the need to know was not, at that time, known or needed.

The essential traits of a leaker are an abundance of information and a lack of power.

Women don't make the decisions in the media. Even if you see women on camera, they have to answer to the person upstairs, which is mostly men. Women only hold 3% of the decision-making offices in the media.

Great is the power, great is the authority of a senate that is unanimous in its opinions.

I try to most effectively and persuasively present our argument, in a way that gives other people the information they need to decide, on the merits, the wisdom of the path that the president has advocated.

Decisions are always made with insufficient information. If you really knew what was going on, the decision would make itself.

What's crucial about being an executive producer is that you stay in the loop, information-wise. They have to share all their major decisions with you.

The very concept of law that protects us from tyranny has been lost. No longer the people's shield, law has become a weapon in the hands of government.

Is anyone really surprised that Warren, who is the ultimate embodiment of concentrated decision-making power, picked somebody [Bill and Melinda Gates] who he thinks is like him in many important ways? It was a noble and sensible decision.

The state has typically been a device for producing affluence for a few at the expense of many.

The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom. That's all it is. All those media companies say, "We're going to make a killing here." You won't because it's still only as good as the content.

I think the willingness to listen is really a matter of confidence. You can't be so superconfident in your abilities that you ignore what others say, and you can't be so diffident in your abilities that you think that if they say something, you will be so taken in that you will do the wrong thing. When you are confident about your abilities and also fully aware of what you don't know you are willing to listen to outside experts with the full sense that if you don't find it worthwhile you will ignore it.

I think that [having not a lot of time sweating the details] can be both a strength and a weakness. I think it depends on how [Donald Trump] approaches it. If it gives him fresh eyes, then that can be valuable. But it also requires you knowing what you don't know and putting in place people who do have the kinds of experience and background and knowledge that can inform good decision making.

The principal mechanism for convergence at the international as well as the domestic level is the diffusion of knowledge.

You know why I got involved in politics? The government is now a majority partner in my life. I am now a minority partner in my own life.

The Internet is an almost miraculous way of getting information, of finding and organizing with each other, both minutely and globally. A million times better than the phone and the mimeograph! Also much better than TV, which is one-way and passive.

We are fighting to vindicate the principle that small nationalities are not to be crushed, in defiance of international good faith, by the arbitrary will of a strong and overmastering Power.

I'm not in show business; I'm in the communications business. That's what it's about for me.

Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny," Paul said. "They’re organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations.

No negotiation is ever possible if you have to negotiate not only with the people in the room but also with some other committee in permanent session.

I think that because of YouTube, because of MySpace, because of the digital domain that we have on the Internet, the younger generation is much more open to information. I think it's so much easier for them to gain information and trade information, and they have become more aware. In some cases, more aware than their own parents and adults, as to what's going on in the world. I find that really intriguing and interesting, and I think there is a brewing of a whole new generation of activists coming.

The structures of the WTO need to be reformed to increase participation. There must be a greater sense of shared ownership of the substance of the trade negotiation agenda. Decisions about issues to be negotiated, and in which sequence they should be taken, should rest with all WTO members, not only the most powerful.