Upendra Shardanand

Umair Haque:

Reconceiving value creation depends on new ideals. Ideals shape what we wish to achieve in the first place: freedom, peace, fairness, justice – all are ideals vastly more powerful than mere business models. That’s because they are what ensure the value we are creating is authentic, deep, meaningful value – not just the shabby, threadbare illusion of value.

Bill Gates at TED:

The market does not drive scientists, thinkers, or governments to do the right things. Only by paying attention and making people care can we make as much progress as we need to.

“Of the world’s three largest democracies, the overwhelming majority of their populations have different religious faiths: Hindus in India, Christians in the United States, and Muslims in Indonesia.”  -  Jimmy Carter

Roger Cohen:

What I am sure of is this: an ever more interconnected world, where financial chain reactions spread with the virulence of plagues, thirsts for American renewal and a form of American leadership sensitive to humanity’s tied fate.

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Chuck Hagel:

All of us are touched by every event

that unfolds in every corner of the world

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The economic meltdown of the past few weeks reminds me of the first of Gandhi’s seven “deadly sins”

Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles

Stephen Covey explains:

Wealth without work. This refers to the practice of getting something for nothing – manipulating markets and assets so you don’t have to work or produce added value, just manipulate people and things.

(And in this election season, “Politics without principle” is probably worth remembering too.)

Krishnamurthi:

You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, ‘What did that man pick up?’ ‘He picked up a piece of the truth,’ said the devil. ‘That is a very bad business for you, then,’ said his friend. ‘Oh, not at all,’ the devil replied, ‘I am going to help him organize it.’

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It never hurts to think too highly of a person; often they become ennobled and act better as a result.

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Martin Luther King Jr.:

The great problem facing modern man is that the means *by* which we live have outdistanced the spiritual ends *for* which we live… The real problem is that through our scientific genius we’ve made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we’ve failed to make it a brotherhood.

And this was pre-web. Shout out to our good friends at Meetup.

It takes the rare public servant to even attempt to the public about something as wonky as the GNP, and still be inspirational. Where have you gone, RFK?

Too much and for too long, we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community value in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over eight hundred billion dollars a year, but that GNP — if we judge the United States of America by that — that GNP counts air pollution and cigarette advertising and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and it counts nuclear warheads, and armored cars for the police to fight riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

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