Human progress depends on unreasonable people. Reasonable people accept the world as they meet it; unreasonable people persist in trying to change it. Well, I'm Bob and I'm an unreasonable person. And if TED is anything, it is the olympics of unreasonable people.

Bob Geldof

Categorized in : People Trying Progress

Blair has called Africa 'a scar on our conscience'. It is more. It is the gaping wound of the world's soul.

scar soul world

But if somebody dies, if something happens to you, there is a normal process of depression, it is part of being human, and some people view it as a learning experience etc.

views depression people

Actually, today I had to defend the Bush Administration in France again. They refuse to accept, because of their political ideology, that he has actually done more than any American President for Africa. But it's empirically so.

political done president

Everything that's rock n roll is ever meant to be is happening now. I need to get over the shock that that thing is actually happening and that thousands of millions of people around the world are watching.

rocks people needs

If you were a pretty boy pop singer, it would wreck you, growing... by Bob Geldof

If you were a pretty boy pop singer, it would wreck you, growing older

wrecks growing boys

I don't think anyone sets out to malign poor people but certainly that's what we do through organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

organization people thinking

Music is what I must do, business is what I need to do and politi... by Bob Geldof

Music is what I must do, business is what I need to do and politics is what I have to do

music-is business needs

So when I got to 50 I just thought, Hold on: I'm thin. I've got my hair. I'm well off. I survived, you know

holding-on wells hair

They thought they were Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall. In fact, they... by Bob Geldof

They thought they were Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall. In fact, they were more like Tom and Jerry

tom-and-jerry halls facts

Music can't change the world. by Bob Geldof

Music can't change the world.

changing-the-world change world

Men who are not given any voice in this because of the secret nature of the courts, what they're left with is dressing up ridiculously, but at least using humour to try and draw attention to their kids

dressing-up men kids

When I hit 11 so did the careers of Dylan and the Stones. A year... by Bob Geldof

When I hit 11 so did the careers of Dylan and the Stones. A year later it was the Who and the Kinks.

careers stones years

You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush administration is the most radical - in a positive sense - in its approach to Africa since Kennedy.

trolleys administration thinking

What's the point in having a company of secretaries? by Bob Geldof

What's the point in having a company of secretaries?

secretary company

90% of the divorces are initiated by women. That is really odd. Why? What's going on? What's the great discontent at the heart of it?

divorce odd heart

I'm sure I'm very difficult to live with because of my make-up an... by Bob Geldof

I'm sure I'm very difficult to live with because of my make-up and personality.

wit difficult personality

It's either vilification or sanctification, and both piss me off. by Bob Geldof

It's either vilification or sanctification, and both piss me off.

Find inner peace? I looked; it wasn't there. by Bob Geldof

Find inner peace? I looked; it wasn't there.

inner-peace inspirational

I do think I feel it but you don't think you are cause at a certain time you are no age but you don't think you are anything. You feel the life you have lived. I feel that. It's been a long fifty years.

birthday years thinking

Because we can't comprehend it, and that's what allows us to do it again. And it is the normal, it's the average person that can do this. Again, in an imaginary other universe, maybe we'd have done it. That's the terrible truth that lies at the heart of each of us; that imponderable, 'were I not Jewish, in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Germany, would I have gone down on the other side?'

heart average lying