The 179+ Thomas Friedman Quotes

My Mother-in-law Says If You Want To Live Like A Republican, Vote Like A Democrat. That If You Are A Part Of The Group That Is Doing Well In This System, You Owe It To Yourself And To Others To Look Out For Them And Make Sure You Are Always Building A Ladder For Others To Join You.

I Think The Arab Awakening Has Changed Everything And I Think A Lot Will Depend On What People There Ask Of Us, May Be Nothing, It May Be A Lot. I Think That Really Depends How They Find Their Voice And What They See As Their Real Interest, And Hopefully That Would Be For More Schools And Not More Tanks.

There Are Elites That Are Real Leaders And Role Models. There Are Elites That Are Really Selfish And Want To Pull Up The Ladder Once They've Reached The Roof.

I Think No Country Is Going To Be Immune From The Arab Awakening Because The Arab Awakening Is Driven By Deep Human Longing For Dignity, For Justice And For Freedom. I Think That Applies To Young People In Saudi Arabia As Much As To Young People In Egypt, Tunisia, Or Yemen, Or Libya, Or Syria. If I Were In Saudi Arabia, I Would Be Getting Ahead Of This And Looking For Ways To Appreciate Those Aspirations And Align My Country With Them.

If You Don't Visit The Bad Neighborhoods, The Bad Neighborhoods Are Going To Visit You.

Syria Is On The Back End Of Basically A Decade-long Drought. Over The Last Decade, Farmers And Herders Have Been Ravaged In Syria Forcing Them To Give Up And Move To Urban Areas. This Has Put A Huge Strain On Urban Resources, And It's Surely One Of The Reasons For The Uprising There.

The Arab Awakening Has Been, Up To Now, A Lot About Freedom From Dictatorial Regimes - Syria, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain And Egypt. But Once You Got Freedom From, Then You Need Freedom To. Freedom From Is About Destroying Things. Freedom To Is About Constructing Things, Constructing The Rule Of Law.

The Arab World Had A Big Problem Of Frankly Venal Elites. That Is Why These Revolutions Happen, Because People Didn't Think The Opportunities Were Being Shared Fairly.

It's Easy To Kind Of Say It's The Elite That's Putting You Down. Well, It Wasn't Really The Elite, Technology Will Do That.

Rock Stars Get Room Keys, I Get Business Cards.

The Historical Debate Is Over. The Answer Is Free-market Capitalism.

I Think There Are Different Kinds Of Elites. I Think There Are Venal Elites, And Self-interested Elites, And Selfish Elites, And I Think There Are Visionary Elites.