Quotes by Nicholas Kristof - Page 3

I think we need to rethink a lot of business skills. In finance, for example, social impact bonds are potentially a way of providing capital for investments that save the public money in a context in which government often doesn't invest in things that would save it money.
Nicholas Kristof /
Finance
Providing
Public Money
Skills
Business Money Government
Business Money Finance
Bonds
Capital
Invest
Context
For Example
Potentially
Rethink
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Sex and gender are such befuddling mysteries even for those of us who are in the mainstream that you'd think we'd be wary of being judgmental. Yet much of society clings to a view that gender is completely binary, when, in fact, there's overwhelming evidence of a continuum.
Nicholas Kristof /
Binary
Continuum
Evidence
Gender
Judgmental
Mainstream
Overwhelming
Sex
In Fact
Mysteries
View
Wary
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However imperfectly, subsidies for the poor do actually reduce hunger, ease suffering and create opportunity, while subsidies for the rich result in more private jets and yachts. Would we rather subsidize opportunity or yachts? Which kind of subsidies deserve more scrutiny?
Nicholas Kristof /
Deserve
Ease
Hunger
Scrutiny
Subsidies
Imperfectly
Jets
Reduce
Yachts
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One of the biggest complaints readers have about my work is that I don't tell them often enough what they can do. I do think this is an area where journalism sometimes falls short. We describe a really grim situation but don't really explain to people what they can do about it.
Nicholas Kristof /
Complaints
Grim
Journalism
Situation
Area
Biggest
Describe
Short
Explain
Falls
Readers
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One of the things you learn as a journalist is that when there's no accountability, we humans are capable of tremendous avarice and venality. That's true of union bosses - and of corporate tycoons. Unions, even flawed ones, can provide checks and balances for flawed corporations.
Nicholas Kristof /
Accountability
Avarice
Capable
Checks
Corporate
Corporations
Flawed
Humans
Balances
Bosses
Checks And Balances
Tremendous
Union
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My father, a refugee from Eastern Europe, was preparing a fraudulent marriage to an American citizen as a route to this country when he was sponsored, making fraud unnecessary. My wife's grandfather bought papers from another Chinese villager to be able to come to the United States.
Nicholas Kristof /
Marriage
Chinese
Eastern
Eastern Europe
Fraud
Grandfather
Papers
Preparing
Refugee
States
United States
Unnecessary
American Citizen
Bought
Citizen
Route
Sponsored
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I was the first blogger on the Times's website. That happened during the Iraq war, when I wanted an outlet for the things I was seeing every day that couldn't fit into just two columns a week. Then I became interested in using multimedia, specifically as a way to engage young people.
Nicholas Kristof /
Columns
Fit
Iraq War
Multimedia
Seeing
Website
War Day People
Became
Interested
Engage
Every Day
Outlet
Specifically
Young People
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One of the aims of higher education is to broaden perspectives, and what better way than by a home stay in a really different country, like Bangladesh or Senegal? Time abroad also leaves one more aware of the complex prism of suspicion through which the United States is often viewed.
Nicholas Kristof /
Bangladesh
Higher Education
Suspicion
Abroad
Time Education Home
Aims
Better Way
Broaden
Education Time Home
Leaves
Perspectives
Prism
Viewed
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If only meat weren't so delicious! Sure, meat may pave the way to a heart attack. Yes, factory farms torture animals. Indeed, producing a single hamburger patty requires more water than two weeks of showers. But for those of us who are weak-willed, there's nothing like a juicy burger.
Nicholas Kristof /
Delicious
Farms
Juicy
Meat
Showers
Torture
Two Weeks
Attack
Burger
Factory
Hamburger
Indeed
Patty
Pave
Producing
Requires
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Technology companies must constantly weigh ethical decisions: Where should Facebook set its privacy defaults, and should it tolerate glimpses of nudity? Should Twitter close accounts that seem sympathetic to terrorists? How should Google handle sex and violence, or defamatory articles?
Nicholas Kristof /
Technology
Accounts
Articles
Ethical
Google
Handle
Privacy
Sex
Sympathetic
Tolerate
Violence
Decisions
Constantly
Close
Companies
Set
Facebook
Seem
Technology Companies
Terrorists
Weigh
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Humans pull together in an odd way when they're in the wilderness. It's astonishing how few people litter and how much they help one another. Indeed, the smartphone app to navigate the Pacific Crest Trail, Halfmile, is a labor of love by hikers who make it available as a free download.
Nicholas Kristof /
Astonishing
Available
Humans
Labor
Navigate
Odd
Pacific
Wilderness
App
Crest
Download
Few People
Indeed
Litter
Pull
Trail
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Ben Affleck exec-produced a documentary for HBO called 'Reporter' about my 2007 win-a-trip journey. I take the trip each year partly to encourage young people to think about global humanitarian issues: I think blogs by a student may be more compelling for that audience than my own work.
Nicholas Kristof /
Blogs
Compelling
Hbo
Affleck
Ben
Ben Affleck
Student
Documentary
Reporter
Each Year
Partly
Trip
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The ice bucket challenge went viral in 2014, partly because it was so much fun to watch videos of celebrities or friends dumping ice water on their heads. Videos of people in the challenge have been watched more than 10 billion times on Facebook - more than once per person on the planet.
Nicholas Kristof /
Ice
Viral
Billion
Watched
Celebrities
Dumping
Facebook
Heads
Per
Partly
So Much Fun
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We all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. We're in a relay race, relying on the financial and human capital of our parents and grandparents. Blacks were shackled for the early part of that relay race, and although many of the fetters have come off, whites have developed a huge lead.
Nicholas Kristof /
Financial
Huge
Race
Shoulders
Come
Stand
Although
Ancestors
Blacks
Capital
Were
Part
Developed
Early
Human
Lead
Grandparents
Off
Parents
Relay
Shackled
Whites
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We journalists are a bit like vultures, feasting on war, scandal and disaster. Turn on the news, and you see Syrian refugees, Volkswagen corruption, dysfunctional government. Yet that reflects a selection bias in how we report the news: We cover planes that crash, not planes that take off.
Nicholas Kristof /
Bias
Corruption
Crash
Disaster
Planes
Scandal
Selection
Report
Cover
Dysfunctional
Journalists
Reflects
Refugees
Syrian
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Young people often aren't in a position to write checks to charities. But there are two things they can do that are invaluable. One is volunteering, especially mentoring other young people with reading, math or help thinking about college. Through iMentor, one can even mentor people online.
Nicholas Kristof /
Checks
Invaluable
Math
Mentoring
Online
Charities
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Individual storytelling is incredibly powerful. We as journalists know intuitively what scientists of the brain are discovering through brain scans, which is that emotional stories tend to open the portals, and that once there's a connection made, people are more open to rational arguments.
Nicholas Kristof /
Discovering
Rational
Connection
Intuitively
Journalists
Portals
Scientists
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One of the most crucial kinds of intervention is in advocacy. We can think about charities in the context of delivering services, and indeed that is part of their job, but advocacy is also getting governments to step up to the plate. They can also give more voice to those who don't have one.
Nicholas Kristof /
Advocacy
Crucial
Delivering
Intervention
Voice
Charities
Context
Governments
Indeed
Plate
Services
Step
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I've always been interested in public health approaches because it seems to me we have this yearning for silver bullets, and that is not in fact how change comes about. Change comes through silver buckshot - a lot of little things that achieve results. That's a classic public health approach.
Nicholas Kristof /
Health
Achieve
Approach
Bullets
Classic
Little Things
Public Health
Results
Seems
Silver
Yearning
Little
Change Always Me
Lot
Interested
Through
Public
Fact
In Fact
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Maybe our best family trip started at Victoria Falls, which drenches you with spray and is so vast that it makes Niagara Falls seem like a backyard creek. Then we rented a car and made our way to Hwange National Park, which was empty of people but crowded with zebras, giraffes, elephants and more.
Nicholas Kristof /
Car
Crowded
Elephants
Empty
Niagara
Spray
Victoria
Best Family People
Backyard
Creek
Vast
Giraffes
Maybe
National
National Park
Park
Seem
Trip
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Climate change is hugely exacerbated by changing patterns of how we choose to live, often in danger zones such as extremely vulnerable coastal zones - from New Jersey to the Philippines. This enormously increases the economic and human costs of hurricanes, rising seas and changing weather patterns.
Nicholas Kristof /
Climate Change
Coastal
Danger
Hurricanes
Jersey
New Jersey
Patterns
Philippines
Rising
Weather
Zone
Exacerbated
Extremely
Hugely
Increases
Seas
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I do think that humanitarians and journalists alike have focused on all the things that go wrong, and that they sometimes leave the perception in the public that the war on poverty has been lost. That Africa is just a bottomless pit of despair. When, in fact, really the opposite is true on both fronts.
Nicholas Kristof /
Despair
Fronts
Perception
Opposite
Alike
Bottomless
Journalists
Pit
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Most moms and dads, they want to be good moms and dads. But it's an incredibly hard job when you are stressed out, when you are poor, when your life is in chaos. And giving them some of the tools to be better parents, to whittle away at that parenting gap, gives those kids a much better starting point in life.
Nicholas Kristof /
Parenting
Chaos
Starting Point
Stressed
Tools
Dads
Gap
Hard Job
Moms
Whittle
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One of my frustrations is that we in society generally have this bifurcation in how we see the world. That's probably a little less true with business audiences, but in general, there tends to be this view that for-profit companies are greedy, and nonprofits are noble. It's absolutely more complicated than that.
Nicholas Kristof /
Greedy
Noble
Frustrations
Tends
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Most of the time in the 21st century, we dominate our surroundings: We tweak the thermostat, and the temperature falls one degree. We push a button, and Taylor Swift sings for us. It's the opposite in the wilderness, which teaches us constantly that we are not lords of the universe but rather building blocks of it.
Nicholas Kristof /
Building Blocks
Surroundings
Temperature
Tweak
Wilderness
Opposite
Blocks
Button
Dominate
Falls
Lords
Sings
Swift
Taylor
Taylor Swift
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Saudi Arabia isn't the enemy, but it is a problem. It could make so much positive difference in the Islamic world if it used its status to soothe Sunni-Shiite tensions and encourage tolerance. For a time, under King Abdullah, it seemed that the country was trying to reform, but now under King Salman, it has stalled.
Nicholas Kristof /
Arabia
Enemy
Islamic
Saudi Arabia
Tolerance
Islamic World
Saudi
Seemed
Soothe
Status
Tensions
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I think humanitarians really feel very awkward and embarrassed about marketing, but it really doesn't matter whether a shampoo gets better marketing. It does matter when a famine or a huge crisis is - oh - well, I hate to use the word 'marketed' better but, you know, is publicized in a way that will be more effective.
Nicholas Kristof /
Awkward
Crisis
Embarrassed
Famine
Marketing
Shampoo
Effective
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I wouldn't want everybody to be an art or literature major, but the world would be poorer - figuratively, anyway - if we were all coding software or running companies. We also want musicians to awaken our souls, writers to lead us into fictional lands, and philosophers to help us exercise our minds and engage the world.
Nicholas Kristof /
Software
Anyway
Awaken
Coding
Fictional
Figuratively
Philosophers
Poorer
Souls
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Dr. Ben Carson has the most moving personal narrative in modern presidential politics. His mother, one of 24 children, had only a third-grade education. She was married at age 13, bore Ben and his brother, and then raised the boys as an impoverished single mother in Detroit. As a young boy, Carson was a terrible student.
Nicholas Kristof /
Brother
Detroit
Married
Narrative
Presidential
Raised
Single Mother
Terrible
Ben
Bore
Student
Dr
Impoverished
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What use could the humanities be in a digital age? University students focusing on the humanities may end up, at least in their parents' nightmares, as dog-walkers for those majoring in computer science. But, for me, the humanities are not only relevant but also give us a toolbox to think seriously about ourselves and the world.
Nicholas Kristof /
Age
Science
Computer
Computer Science
Digital
Digital Age
May
Relevant
University
Age World Me
Also
Those
Could
Focusing
Give
Humanities
Parents
Least
Nightmares
Seriously
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Wilderness trails constitute a rare space in America marked by economic diversity. Lawyers and construction workers get bitten by the same mosquitoes and sip from the same streams; there are none of the usual signals about socioeconomic status, for most hikers are in shorts and a T-shirt and enveloped by an aroma that would make a skunk queasy.
Nicholas Kristof /
Shorts
Signals
Streams
Trails
Usual
Wilderness
Workers
Bitten
Rare
Constitute
Marked
Sip
Skunk
Status
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Every high school and college graduate in America should, I think, have some familiarity with statistics, economics and a foreign language such as Spanish. Religion may not be as indispensable, but the humanities should be a part of our repertory. They may not enrich our wallets, but they do enrich our lives. They civilize us. They provide context.
Nicholas Kristof /
Familiarity
Foreign Language
High School
Indispensable
Our Lives
Statistics
Context
Enrich
Graduate
High School And College
Humanities
Provide
Repertory
Spanish
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Nicholas Kristof Quotes - Page 3

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