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American young people have got to understand from an early age that the world pays off on results, not on effort. Not everyone should win a prize no matter where he or she finishes.

Thomas Friedman

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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
Understand
Early
Young
Pay
Matter
Results
World
Effort
People
Winning
Age
Finishes
American
Pays
Everyone
Prize

More quotes by Thomas Friedman

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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
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I was in Bangalore, India, the Silicon Valley of India, when I realized that the world was flat.
Thomas Friedman
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America needs rebooting.
Thomas Friedman
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No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's
Thomas Friedman
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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
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I'm a capitalist. I believe in capitalism. But capitalism only works if you have safety nets to deal with people who are naturally left behind and brutalized by it.
Thomas Friedman
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What every employer is looking for is not someone who can do the job, but someone who can reinvent the job.
Thomas Friedman
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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
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Basically all the world's computer parts come from the same supply chain that runs from Korea, down through coastal China, over to Taiwan, and down to Malaysia.
Thomas Friedman
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You'll know the green revolution has been won when the word 'green' disappears.
Thomas Friedman
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Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.
Thomas Friedman
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I would say that in 2000, we understand as much about how today's system of globalization is going to work as we understood about how the Cold War system was going to work in 1946.
Thomas Friedman
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That's right-the striking thing about greenhouse gases is the diversity of sources that emit them. A herd of cattle belching can be worse than highway full of hummers.
Thomas Friedman
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The great thing about cheap natural gas, again it's cheap, and it provides a cleaner alternative to coal. But it's still a fossil fuel, and because it's still a fossil fuel, it still emits carbon.
Thomas Friedman
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The reason that we are becoming less equal is because of the greater requirements, secure requirements, for a good job. This goes back to the '80s basically, this started changing as globalization and the IT revolution merged, and each started to drive the other.
Thomas Friedman
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Change your leaders, not your light bulbs.
Thomas Friedman
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The unemployment rate today for people with our-year college degrees is 4.1%, which is almost none. That's people switching jobs basically. That tells you that education is the only way up and the only way out. If that is the fact, then we've got to get more of it for more people.
Thomas Friedman
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I don't know what the average income of Muslim-Americans is, but Muslim-American immigrants of recent vintage, I bet they have a very above-average representation in professional and business occupations.
Thomas Friedman
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I think that competition will exist even if we discover more oil. We're never going to know how much we have, or how long will it last. You are always going to want to have diversity of supply. I think the Middle East will remain a region of competition, of global competition, fighting for a long time.
Thomas Friedman
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Once people get a taste for whatever you want to call it - economic independence, a better lifestyle, and a better life for their children - they grab on to that and don't want to give it up.
Thomas Friedman