Quote

If e-mail had been around before the telephone was invented, people would have said, 'Hey, forget e-mail! With this new telephone invention I can actually talk to people!'.

Thomas Friedman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Thomas Friedman
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: July 20
Columnist
Journalist
Screenwriter
Television Producer
Writer
Saint Louis Park
Minnesota
Thomas Loren Friedman
Thomas L. Friedman
Around
Hey
Would
Mail
People
Invented
Invention
Talk
Forget
Actually
Telephone
Culture
Telephones

More quotes by Thomas Friedman

Image
No matter what your profession – doctor, lawyer, architect, accountant – if you are an American, you better be good at the touchy-feely service stuff, because anything that can be digitized can be outsourced to either the smartest or the cheapest producer.
Thomas Friedman
Image
What if we're wrong and there is no climate change? Well, by doing everything possible to address it, we will still use less water, stimulate new energy savings and, in time, money-saving technologies, enjoy cleaner air, and preserve more forests and trees and animals.
Thomas Friedman
Image
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once remarked that if you ask a man how much is two plus two and he tells you five, that is a mistake. But if you ask a man how much is two plus two and he tells you ninety-seven, that is no longer a mistake. The man you are talking to is operating with a wholly different logic from your own.
Thomas Friedman
Image
The Middle East would always be an important trading partner in just a market sense, like America is a big market for us, Asia is a big market, Europe is a big market. You are going to have hundreds of millions of consumers there, from just a standard market point of view, from a very narrow American point of view.
Thomas Friedman
Image
The country that owns green, that dominates that industry, is going to have the most energy security, national security, economic security, competitive companies, healthy population and, most of all, global respect.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Combating climate change requires government policy, and most conservatives hate the idea of more government regulation. Because they hate the prescription, they deny the diagnosis.
Thomas Friedman
Image
I don't think a monarchy led by 75- and 80-year-old men [Saudi Arabia] in today's modern world is really sustainable.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Two things are going on at the same time with the flattening of the world: The relentless quest for efficiency is squeezing some of the fat out of life.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Iraq today does have a chance to shape its own future. They may not do that, or this generation may not do that. But maybe the next one will, I don't know. They may try and fail, and stumble, get up and fall back.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Only if you give the Palestinians something to lose is there a hope that they will agree to moderate their demands.... I believe that as soon as Ahmed has a seat in the bus, he will limit his demands.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Every golf course should have its carbon rating on the scorecard, alongside its Course Rating, Slope, par and yardage.
Thomas Friedman
Image
If we don't have a more serious energy policy, the difference between a good day and bad day for America from here on will hinge on how the 86-year-old king of Saudi Arabia manages...change.
Thomas Friedman
Image
McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15.
Thomas Friedman
Image
There are elites that are real leaders and role models. There are elites that are really selfish and want to pull up the ladder once they've reached the roof.
Thomas Friedman
Image
What we have in the Bush team is a faith-based administration. It launched a faith-based war in Iraq, on the basis of faith-based intelligence, with a faith-based plan for Iraqi reconstruction, supported by faith-based tax cuts to generate faith-based revenues.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Optimists are usually wrong. But all the great change in history, positive change, was done by optimists.
Thomas Friedman
Image
You take one bomber and deploy him in Baghdad, and another is manufactured in Riyadh the next day. It's exactly like when you take the toy off the shelf at Wal-Mart and another is made in Shen Zhen the next day.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Geopolitics is all about leverage. We cannot make ourselves safer abroad unless we change our behavior at home.
Thomas Friedman
Image
There is a connection between energy, climate, food and political stability. That has played out in the Arab awakening and is not done playing out.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Guantanamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty.
Thomas Friedman