Quotes from Bill Gates

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.

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.

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn't make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

Security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit; your machine can be taken over totally.

Software substitution, whether it's for drivers or waiters or nurses - it's progressing. Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set.

Bringing together the right information with the right people will dramatically improve a company's ability to develop and act on strategic business opportunities.

People everywhere love Windows.

Like my friend Warren Buffett, I feel particularly lucky to do something every day that I love to do. He calls it "tap dancing to work."

The main thing that's missing in energy is an incentive to create things that are zero-CO2-emitting and that have the right scale and reliability characteristics.

Eventually, all companies are replaced.

We all have the chance to create a world where extreme poverty is the exception rather than the rule, and where all children have the same chance to thrive, no matter where theyre born.

For those of us who believe in the value of every human life, there isnt any more inspiring work under way in the world today.

What I do best is share my enthusiasm.

I don't think there's anything unique about human intelligence. All the neurons in the brain that make up perceptions and emotions operate in a binary fashion.

If you give people tools, [and they use] their natural ability and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.

Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time.

In terms of fast food and deep understanding of the culture of fast food, I'm your man.

This is a very exciting time in the world of information. It's not just that the personal computer has come along as a great tool. The whole pace of business is moving faster. Globalization is forcing companies to do things in new ways.

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

My success, part of it certainly, is that I have focused in on a few things.

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to and efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

The frontiers were sort of wide open. It was that sense of excitement that we really wanted to spark in everybody else wherever we went.

We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering.

By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. People are living longer, healthier lives. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient.