Historical Quotes
Find one of the best and famous quote catagorized into topics like inspirational, motivations, deep, thoughtful, art, success, passion, frindship, life, love and many more.
History will tell you that borders are not inevitable, they hardly existed at the end of the 19th century.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
There's always selfish behavior. There are lots of examples of people hoarding. But we've seen in this pandemic that the vast majority of behavior from normal citizens is actually pro-social in nature. People are willing to help their neighbors.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Believing in the good of humanity is a revolutionary act - it means that we don't need all those managers and CEO's, kings and generals. That we can trust people to govern themselves and make their own decisions.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Psychologists even have a term for this: they talk about 'mean world syndrome'. People who have just seen too much of the news have become more cynical, more pessimistic, more anxious, even more depressive. So, yeah, I think that is something you need to be wary of.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Since long workdays lead to more errors, shorter workdays could reduce accidents. Overtime is deadly. Tired surgeons have been found to be more prone to slip'ups, and soldiers who get too little shuteye are more prone to miss targets.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Most of Mark Zuckerberg's income is just rent collected off the millions of picture and video posts that we give away daily for free. And sure, we have fun doing it. But we also have no alternative - after all, everybody is on Facebook these days.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
I know that there are many excellent arguments for a universal form of basic income. Since everyone would get it, it would remove the stigma that dogs recipients of assistance and 'entitlements'.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
As our farms and factories grew more efficient, they accounted for a shrinking share of our economy. And the more productive agriculture and manufacturing became, the fewer people they employed.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
I was born in 1988, one year before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and people of my generation were taught that utopian dreams are dangerous.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
It's actually more than 700 case studies that show that, especially in times of crisis, we show our best selves. And we get this explosion of altruism and cooperation. This happens again and again after natural disasters, after earthquakes and after floodings.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Actually, it is precisely in overworked countries like Japan, England and the US that people watch an absurd amount of television. Up to four hours a day in England, which adds up to nine years over an average lifetime.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Year after year, politicians have drafted huge piles of legislation on the assumption that most people are not good. And we know the consequences of that policy: inequality, loneliness and mistrust.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Societies tend to presume that poor people are unable to handle money. If they had any, people reason, the poor and homeless would probably spend it on fast food and cheap beer, not on fruit or education.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
A universal basic income means not only that millions of people would receive unconditional cash payments, but also that millions of people would have to cough up thousands more in taxes to fund it. This will make basic income politically a harder sell.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
So I think that good journalism helps you to zoom out, to focus on the structural forces that govern our lives. And I think that good journalism is also not only about the problems, but also about the solutions, and the people who are working on these solutions.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
No one is suggesting societies the world over should implement an expensive basic income system in one stroke.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Research suggests that someone who is constantly drawing on their creative abilities can, on average, be productive for no more than six hours a day.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
The greatest sin of the academic left is that it has become fundamentally aristocratic, writing in bizarre jargon that makes cliches seem abstruse. If you can't explain your ideal to a fairly intelligent 12-year-old, it's probably your own fault.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
It's one of the tragedies of the modern university that it offers little space to generalists.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Children are born as emphatic and compassionate beings - so you don't have to teach them generosity, it's in their nature to be friendly.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
One of my rules for life is: 'When in doubt, assume the best,' because in the end, most people are pretty decent.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
A lot of journalists help us to better understand the world by zooming out and sometimes zooming in on a really important case but sort of helping us to get a grasp of what are the structural forces that govern our lives and our societies and that is incredibly important.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Remember: real politics isn't about figureheads and seats in parliament. Real politics is about ideas. And there can be no doubt regarding the extreme ideas that have been gaining ground in the Netherlands for decades.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
News reports following a natural disaster are almost always dominated by stories of looting and violence, but in many cases such stories turn out to be unfounded speculations based on rumour.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
The great thing about money is that people can use it to buy things they need instead of things self-appointed experts think they need.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Employees have been worrying about the rising tide of automation for 200 years now, and for 200 years employers have been assuring them that new jobs will naturally materialize to take their place.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Contact is the best medicine against hate, racism and prejudice. It's something that we should be very wary of, the more segregation we have, the more of a problem that's going to be.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
While it won't solve all the world's ills - and ideas such as a rent cap and more social housing are necessary in places where housing is scarce - a basic income would work like venture capital for the people.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
In the past 20 years scientists from very diverse disciplines - anthropologists, archaeologists, sociologists, psychologists - have all moved to a much more hopeful, optimistic view of human nature.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Even if you don't care about the environment whatsoever, solar panels are really cool, and are an investment because they save money in the long run.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Well, the news is mostly about things that go wrong, right? It's about sensationalist incidents that happened today, instead of things that happen every day. So if you watch and follow a lot of the news, at the end of the day, you know exactly how the world is not working.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
I always eat bread and almost always peanut butter and apple syrup, sometimes cheese. I hardly ever ate out as a child. When I did it more as a student, it felt strange to be served.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
My aspiration was to write a book that you could still read in 10 years. That's hard. Then you start doubting every sentence you write.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
A Dutchman can't easily get away from cheese. I was dropped into a cauldron of cheese when I was young.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
During the Enlightenment, there were brilliant thinkers who realized that, if you assume most people are naturally selfish and you construct the market around that, sometimes it can actually work for the common good. I just think that in many cases, it went too far.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
It matters so much that from a very early age we encounter different kinds of different people, because that's what real life should be about as well.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Since 1963, the University of Delaware's Disaster Research Center has conducted nearly 700 field studies on floods and earthquakes, and on-site research reveals the same results every time: the vast majority of people stay calm and help each other.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Around the year 2000, countries such as France, the Netherlands and the US were already five times as wealthy as in 1930. Yet nowadays our biggest challenges are not leisure and boredom, but stress and uncertainty.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
True innovation takes at least 10 to 15 years, whereas the longest that private venture capitalists are routinely willing to wait is five years. They don't join the game until all the riskiest plays have already been made - by governments.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Government isn't there just to administer life support to failing markets. Without the government, many of those markets would not even exist.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
The most daunting challenges of our times, from climate change to the ageing population, demand an entrepreneurial state unafraid to take a gamble.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
In reality, it is the waste collectors, the nurses, and the cleaners whose shoulders are supporting the apex of the pyramid. They are the true mechanism of social solidarity.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Bankers are the most obvious class of closet freeloaders, but they are certainly not alone. Many a lawyer and an accountant wields a similar revenue model.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman
Private companies mostly manufacture medications that resemble what we've already got. They get it patented and, with a hefty dose of marketing, a legion of lawyers, and a strong lobby, can live off the profits for years.
Quote by -Rutger Bregman