Vincent Tan Quotes

The most generous part of your philanthropy could be the time you put in to procure the same results and same outcomes and same returns you demand in business.

Philanthropic dollars are precious resources, so it's our responsibility to consider how we use them carefully. Yet few of us spend enough time doing so.

Even an ideal set of trade-offs must—and should—leave a whole spectrum of unmet needs, because the cost of wiping out the last vestige of any problem is leaving other problems in more dire condition. In short, trade-offs must be incremental rather than categorical, if limited resources are to produce optimal results in any social system as a whole.

In the not-for-profit world, there can be wastefulness because there's not the desperate urgency of when you're on a clock.

But as someone pointed out earlier, it is not really about fairness; it is about taking finite resources and applying them where they will have the most effect.

Before we give you billions more, we want to know what you've done with the trillion you've got.

Working with limited resources is an excellent way to hone skills that will serve you well for the rest of your career. You will prioritize profitability from the start.

Don't accumulate if you do not need. The excess of wealth in your hands is for the society, and you are the trustee for the same.

Can there not be a limit to the fact that really you need to cut your cloth in accordance with what capabilities and finances you have?

We have a responsibility to make sure that the limited resources we have are spent efficiently and effectively and that programs achieve their mission.

Time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.

America has to ask itself not what it wants, but what it can afford.

I make a personal commitment to the direction and success of all the programs in which I invest. I make all major philanthropic decisions myself after taking account of a range of expert opinion.

There are a lot of good causes out there, but they can't possibly all be served by government.

It's always the organizations that are resource constrained that come up with the good ideas to win.

The more you keep costs down, the more freedom you have creatively.

Since scarcity is the basic economic problem, if it does not exist then there is no reason for my economics course. Devoting time to the study of how people use limited resources to fulfill unlimited wants and needs should help us to discover how to best utilize the resources we have at our disposal.

Everything we do in public policy prevents us from doing something else. To govern is to choose.

Climate change is destroying our path to sustainability. Ours is a world of looming challenges and increasingly limited resources. Sustainable development offers the best chance to adjust our course.

In abandoning the understanding that things - services, goods, wars, and houses - have costs, we risk becoming infantilised, incapable of making decisions about government or finance, and perhaps above all about the environment, the wellbeing of the planet upon which we depend and which our children will inherit from us.

Philanthropy without scale and sustainability is like any other bad business that will simply wither and die on the vine.

Charity is very difficult to do right. Thinking through what people need: You can't start a charity without that. It's like starting a business without the product.

It is very likely that many firms spend more on advertising than, for their own best interests, they should.

Even when you have a big budget, you can't just shoot everything.

We must protect our limited resources for those who are truly in need and who are doing all they can to be self-sufficient.