Our president's latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.

Thomas Friedman

Categorized in : Country Kings Gasoline Prices

What every employer is looking for is not someone who can do the job, but someone who can reinvent the job.

Thomas Friedman

job-well-done work jobs

When I was growing up, my parents told me, 'Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving.' I tell my daughters, 'Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.'

Thomas Friedman

daughter mother education

Remember, the difference between the world frozen over, in an ice ball, and the warming period we're in now is just 6 degrees centigrade. A change of just 1 degree can have a huge effect.

Thomas Friedman

remember world

The thing you have to remember is, oil and gas are commodities, and the more we use them the more the price goes up, like any commodity. Solar, wind - they are technologies, so the more you use them, the more the price goes down.

Thomas Friedman

commodity technology remember

Your boss doesn't care what you know, because the Google machine knows everything. Your boss cares about what you can do with what you know. That's the only thing your boss will pay for.

Thomas Friedman

google boss machines

Hope and optimism aren't just attitudes, they are life strategies.

Thomas Friedman

strategy optimism attitude

In the future, how we educate our children may prove to be more important than how much we educate them.

Thomas Friedman

important may children

Guantanamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty.

Thomas Friedman

guantanamo-bay statues liberty

I've always believed the world would be a better place if more people everywhere have a chance to shape their own future and realize their full potential. I think that is what life is about.

Thomas Friedman

full-potential people thinking

America was the funder of petro-dictatorships. We treated all these countries as basically big, large gas stations: Libya station, Iraq station, Iran station, Egypt station, Syria station, and all we asked of them were three things: Keep your palms open, your prices low and don't bother Israel too much, and you can do whatever you want to your own people.

Thomas Friedman

egypt israel country

Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.

Thomas Friedman

optimism-and-pessimism optimistic change

The country that owns green, that dominates that industry, is going to have the most energy security, national security, economic security, competitive companies, healthy population and, most of all, global respect.

Thomas Friedman

healthy energy country

If you want to get an advance machine tool job today, you need to know calculus. We know a lot of people don't, we can't expect everyone to know calculus, what do we do? We created a huge bubble that created a huge number of jobs to build houses and to be in retail. You don't have to have a lot of skills to work in the new Gap store that opened, at the latest Starbucks branch, or to hammer a nail for a new house.

Thomas Friedman

skills numbers jobs

No matter what your profession – doctor, lawyer, architect, accountant – if you are an American, you better be good at the touchy-feely service stuff, because anything that can be digitized can be outsourced to either the smartest or the cheapest producer.

Thomas Friedman

doctors matter stuff

Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction - out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East - is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest.

Thomas Friedman

middle-east party israel

Do you know what my favorite renewable fuel is? An ecosystem for innovation.

Thomas Friedman

innovation ecosystems fuel

If you are self-motivated, wow, this world is tailored for you. The boundaries are all gone. But if you're not self-motivated, this world will be a challenge because the walls, ceilings and floors that protected people are also disappearing. That is what I mean when I say "it is a 401(k) world." Government will do less for you. Companies will do less for you. Unions can do less for you. There will be fewer limits, but also fewer guarantees. Your specific contribution will define your specific benefits much more. Just showing up will not cut it.

Thomas Friedman

wall cutting mean

No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's

Thomas Friedman

mcdonalds war country

At the end of the day, no amount of investing, no amount of clean electrons, no amount of energy efficiency will save the natural world if we are not paying attention to it - if we are not paying attention to all the things that nature give us for free: clean air, clean water, breathtaking vistas, mountains for skiing, rivers for fishing, oceans for sailing, sunsets for poets, and landscapes for painters. What good is it to have wind-powered lights to brighten the night if you can't see anything green during the day? Just because we can't sell shares in nature doesn't mean it has no value.

Thomas Friedman

sunset ocean mean

Tap into people's dignity and they will do anything for you. Ignore it, and they won't lift a finger.

Thomas Friedman

dignity wisdom people