Inspirational Quotes
Words to motivate, inspire, and guide you.
Bill Gates Quotes
AidLife SavingEfficiency Well-spent aid money is saving lives for a few thousand dollars per life saved.
Literary PreferenceAuthorsBooks There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.
EducationFuture JobsCareer Readiness By 2018, an estimated 63 percent of all new U.S. jobs will require workers with an education beyond high school. For our young people to get those jobs, they first need to graduate from high school ready to start a postsecondary education.
BioterrorismPublic HealthPreparednessSecurity Nobody spends any money on smallpox unless they worry about a bio-terrorist recreating it.
Digital TechnologyEducationStudent Support Digital technology has several features that can make it much easier for teachers to pay special attention to all their students.
EducationCareerSkillsInitiative If you've found some way to educate yourself about engineering, stocks, or whatever it is, good employers will have some type of exam or interview and see a sample of your work.
AfricaDevelopmentMalaria Eradication For Africa to move forward, you've really got to get rid of malaria.
EducationEmploymentKnowledge Employers have decided that having the breadth of knowledge that's associated with a four-year degree is often something they want to see in the people they give that job to.
Nuclear EnergyReactorsFission The part of uranium that's fissile - when you hit it with a neutron, it splits in two - is about 0.7%. The reactors we have today are burning that 0.7%.
Global ProgressPoverty ReductionInequality The world at large is less inequitable today than at any time in history. Number of people in abject poverty, as a percentage, is at all-time low.
StrugglePrioritiesPerspectiveFame If you're a person struggling to eat and stay healthy, you might have heard about Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali, but you'll never have heard of Bill Gates.
BiofuelsFood SecurityLand UseAgricultureEconomics If you're using first-class land for biofuels, then you're competing with the growing of food. And so you're actually spiking food prices by moving energy production into agriculture.
SuccessRewardCreativitySustainability Well I think any author or musician is anxious to have legitimate sales of their products, partly so they're rewarded for their success, partly so they can go on and do new things.
IndividualityAcceptance I know there's a farmer out there somewhere who never wants a PC and that's fine with me.
ProductivityTechnologyEfficiencyWorkspace On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you'll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.
BoundariesBureaucracyArbitrariness There's no magic line between an application and an operating system that some bureaucrat in Washington should draw.
PovertyInequalityJusticeEducation If you're low-income in the United States, you have a higher chance of going to jail than you do of getting a four-year degree. And that doesn't seem entirely fair.
VolunteeringParental ExampleActivismControversy When I was growing up, my parents were almost involved in various volunteer things. My dad was head of Planned Parenthood. And it was very controversial to be involved with that.
VigilanceProactivenessSurvival In this business, by the time you realize you're in trouble, it's too late to save yourself. Unless you're running scared all the time, you're gone.
Global HealthSecurity ChallengesDisease EradicationPublic Health Ninety percent of the cases of polio are in security-vulnerable areas.
Digital CurrencyAnonymityEthics Bitcoin is mostly about anonymous transactions, and I don't think over time that's a good way to go. I'm a huge believe in digital currency... but doing it on an anonymous basis I think that leads to some abuses, so I'm not involved in Bitcoin.
InternetCommunityGlobalizationFuture The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.
ImprovementIndependenceAction A lot of the things that will really improve the world fortunately aren't dependent on Washington doing something different.
EradicationPublic HealthLong-term BenefitsFinancial Savings Polio's pretty special because once you get an eradication, you no longer have to spend money on it; it's just there as a gift for the rest of time.
Internet CensorshipDigital FreedomGovernment ControlInformation Access There are websites that any government wants to block. The truth about the Internet is that it's extremely hard to block anything - extremely hard. You'll never get perfect blocking.
HealthProgressAchievementGlobal Impact I think when smallpox was eliminated, the whole world got pretty excited about that because it's just such a dramatic success.
EmpowermentContributionSoftwareImpact I was lucky to be involved and get to contribute to something that was important, which is empowering people with software.
Public HealthEpidemic The ideal thing would be to have a 100 percent effective AIDS vaccine. And to have broad usage of that vaccine. That would literally break the epidemic.
BudgetingPrioritizationPoliticsTrade-offs In a budget, how important is art versus music versus athletics versus computer programming? At the end of the day, some of those trade-offs will be made politically.
ExposureAwarenessExperience Exposure from a young age to the realities of the world is a super-big thing.
PandemicHistoryGlobal HealthInterconnectedness The worst pandemic in modern history was the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed tens of millions of people. Today, with how interconnected the world is, it would spread faster.
PoliticsBusinessFocusIndependence I'm sorry that we have to have a Washington presence. We thrived during our first 16 years without any of this. I never made a political visit to Washington and we had no people here. It wasn't on our radar screen. We were just making great software.
MoneyFreedom I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars; there's a certain freedom, meaningful freedom, that comes with that.
BusinessMeasurementCustomer SatisfactionPerformanceSuccess In business, the idea of measuring what you are doing, picking the measurements that count like customer satisfaction and performance... you thrive on that.
TechnologyDigitalizationEfficiencyModern WorkOrganization Paper is no longer a big part of my day. I get 90% of my news online, and when I go to a meeting and want to jot things down, I bring my Tablet PC. It's fully synchronized with my office machine, so I have all the files I need. It also has a note-taking piece of software called OneNote, so all my notes are in digital form.
LeadershipHigh StandardsProgress It's OK for China to invent cancer drugs that cure patients in the United States. We want them to catch up. But as the leader, we want to keep setting a very, very high standard. We don't want them to catch up because we're slowing down or, even worse, going into reverse.
InnovationProgressHuman Condition Innovation is a good thing. The human condition - put aside bioterrorism and a few footnotes - is improving because of innovation.
CompetitionPositivityIndia I think the positive competition between states in India is one of the most positive dynamics that the country has.
SupportHumanityDisaster Relief The outpouring of support from millions of people in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti has been impressive.