Thomas Friedman Quotes

The Internet is the most important single development in the history of human communication since the invention of call waiting.

We never, ever in the history of mankind have had access to so much information so quickly and so easily.

The Internet has changed the way we communicate with each other, the way we learn about the world and the way we conduct business.

The Internet is one of the most revolutionary technologies the world has ever known. It has given us an entire universe of information in our pockets.

Collaboration among individuals, brands, and industries will only continue to accelerate as technology facilitates and enables greater connection in real time from anywhere in the world. It's why we're experiencing such an unprecedented pace of innovation in every aspect of our lives.

I don't think I had a role model. I just was very inspired by an article which I read in Forbes magazine around the information superhighway and the Arpanet and stuff like that. To me, that intuitively made sense, and when I decided to come to the U.S., I knew exactly what I wanted to go and write about.

Even before I helped to co-found Microsoft, I saw a connected future . . . I called that future The Wired World.

By now, it seems as if everyone has already read Thomas L. Friedman's 'The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.' It changed the way we think about global business, competitiveness and the implication for far-flung economies, governments, education and more.

The connectivity declaration is about uniting the whole industry - a lot of companies that typically compete very fiercely - to push in a coherent direction.

I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in.

I get really excited imagining what we can do in the future with broadband.

The explosion in access to mobile phones and digital services means that people everywhere are contributing vast amounts of information to the global knowledge warehouse. Moreover, they are doing so for free, just by communicating, buying and selling goods and going about their daily lives.

One of the lessons I have learned in the different stages of my career is that science is not done alone. It is through talking with others and sharing that progress is made.

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.

We like to think of the Internet as a border-busting technology.

When we developed written language, we significantly increased our functional memory and our ability to share insights and knowledge across time and space. The same thing happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio.

Whenever a technology enables people to organize at a pace that wasn't before possible, new kinds of politics emerge.

Humankind is getting more and more connected.

People live longer today than they ever have. They live happier lives, have more knowledge, more information. All this is the result of communications technology. How is any of that bad?

Those who are mastering more and more the communications revolution, those who realize that there are no borders in the world, are the ones who are going to leap ahead.

There's a digital revolution taking place both in and out of government in favor of open-sourced data, innovation, and collaboration.

I am sure innovation will blossom around the world, given that the Internet and mobile platforms enable innovators anywhere in the world to reach a global market with ease.

Over the last few years, the world has become a smaller and more integrated place with technology that is leveling the playing field like never before.

Remember how small the world was before I came along? I brought it all to life: I moved the whole world onto a 20-foot screen.

The computer is your passport, not only to the future but to knowing what's going around you.