Best 19 quotes of Paul Collier on MyQuotes

At the core of all successful societies are procedures for blocking the advancement of bad men

Eddie Robinson is about one word: winning and losing.

Elections determine who is in power, but they do not determine how power is used.

How do we give credible hope to the billion poorest people in the world? It requires compassion to get ourselves started, and enlightened self-interest to get serious... If economic divergence continues, combined with global integration, it will build a nightmare for our children.

Most conduct is guided by norms rather than by laws. Norms are voluntary and are effective because they are enforced by peer pressure.

Politicians would only move beyond gestures once there was a critical mass of informed citizens.

Poverty is not intrinsically a trap, otherwise we would all still be poor.

There is a simple way of avoiding excess risk-taking by the managers of our financial institutions. It is to make it a crime ... had a crime for reckless management of a financial institution been on the books, Northern Rock and RBS would not have blown up.

Without an informed electorate, politicians will continue to use the bottom billion merely for photo opportunities, rather than promoting real transformation.

You are a citizen, and citizenship carries responsibilities.

You can tell everybody that Eddie Robinson's out looking for a job right now, and believe me, he's a great kid. He's happy and he's healthy. All he needs is a couple of weeks to regain game fitness. Put him on the court and when the game counts ... Eddie Robinson is about one word: winning and losing. He's a great athlete, and I love him to death.

And so a miserable but possible scenario is that countries in the bottom billion oscillate between the traps and limbo, perhaps switching in the process from one trap to another.. Let me be clear: we cannot rescue them. The societies of the bottom billion can only be rescued from within. In every society of the bottom billion there are people working for change, but usually they are defeated by the powerful internal forces stacked against them. We should be helping the heroes. So far, our efforts have been paltry: through inertia, ignorance, and incompetence, we have stood by and watched them lose. Let me be clear: we cannot rescue them. These societies of the bottom billion can only be rescued from within.

Electorates tend to get the politicians they deserve.

Launching a turnaround takes courage. I cannot measure that and so it is not going to be included in my analysis, but behind the moments of change there are always a few people within these societies who have decided to try to make a difference.

Not all developing countries are the same.

Persuading everyone to behave decently to each other because the society is so fragile is a worthy goal, but it may be more straightforward just to make the societies less fragile, which means developing their economies.

Populism offers the headless heart; ideology offers the heartless head.

Rebels usually have something to complain about, and if they don't they make it up. All too often the really disadvantaged are in no position to rebel; they just suffer quietly.

Suppose a country starts its independence with the three economic characteristics that globally make a country prone to civil war: low income, slow growth, and dependence upon primary commodity exports. It is playing Russian roulette. That is not just an idle metaphor: the risk that a country in the bottom billion falls into civil war in any five-year period is nearly one in six, the same risk facing a player of Russian roulette.