Thomas Friedman is an American author who became famous his books such as “The World is Flat”, “The Lexus and The Olive Tree”, and “Thank You for Being Late”. He was born on this day, July 20 in 1953 in the State of Minnesota. The son of Jewish parents, he attended Hebrew School and wrote in the school newspaper. He visited Israel three times during his high school days. He finished a degree in Mediterranean studies from Brandeis University where he graduated Summa cum laude. He also finished a master in philosophy from the University of Oxford.

Friedman worked as a reporter for UPI and later transferred to New York Times where he now writes a regular column. Although he received several awards for his reports including Pulitzer Award and the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, some critics disagree with his views on unrestricted world trade and globalization. He has two daughters with his economist wife Ann Bucksbaum.

“Hope and optimism aren’t just attitudes, they are life strategies.”

“To learn how to learn, you have to love learning — or you have to at least enjoy it — because so much learning is about being motivated to teach yourself.”

“You can be a rich person alone. You can be a smart person alone. But you cannot be a complete person alone.”

“Your boss doesn’t care what you know, because the Google machine knows everything. Your boss cares about what you can do with what you know. That’s the only thing your boss will pay for.”

“What every employer is looking for is not someone who can do the job, but someone who can reinvent the job.”

“Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.”

“When widely followed public figures feel free to say anything, without any fact-checking, it becomes impossible for a democracy to think intelligently about big issues.”

“Big breakthroughs happen when what is suddenly possible meets what is desperately needed.”

“It has always been my view that terrorism is not spawned by the poverty of money; it is spawned by the poverty of dignity. Humiliation is the most underestimated force in international relations and in human relations.”

“The ideal country in a flat world is the one with no natural resources, because countries with no natural resources tend to dig inside themselves.”

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