Nicolas Berggruen Quotes

21 quotes in 391 categories

• The biggest determinant in our lives is culture, where we are born, what the environment looks like. But the second biggest determinant is probably governance,…
• Everybody is different and I think that we live in a material world. But for me, possessing things is not that interesting. Living in a…
• Most countries in Africa have the capacity to be great agricultural producers, but they do only subsistence production. So a family will produce for themselves…
• Other people might have family - three kids or five houses. In my case, that doesn't exist. I'm going to give everything away. Everything has…
• L.A. is very special to me, so far away from my world on the East Coast, Europe, Asia. It's a bit of an island for…
• In my teens I was interested in photography. Then I decided that I should learn something about the world of commerce. And I came to…
• Commodity exchanges have a lot of advantages. One, you are helping transparency. Two, they are not political. It's institutional building. It can survive any environment,…
• California has something which not every place in the world has: It has what I would call a sunny side, and I don't mean just…
• At the end, the key thing is you've got to live with yourself. That's the real test. Everything else is fleeting.
• Luckily the whole world is not like me, or else, there would be no world.
• Possessing things is not that interesting. Living in a grand environment to show myself and others that I have wealth has zero appeal.
• California is a place of invention, a place of courage, a place of vision, a place of the future. People who made California what it…
• If you have things and if you are a perfectionist, which I am, you have to really tend to them, and it takes energy away…
• Everything I do now is about growing the pot to have more to give away,
• Think of everything in Seattle - Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks. Then you go down to Silicon Valley - Intel, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter. What does New…
• I felt I was owned by possessions.
• I tend to end relationships, so she can find somebody better than me. Because I want to be fair to people. I cannot devote enough…
• Singapore has been incredibly well-managed. It was created out of the swamp, with a strong emotional idea: a safe place for mostly Chinese, but accepting…
• If you erased New York, I hate to say it, if you erased Frankfurt, even London, the world would not have changed.
• This is a bit like big-game hunting. You look for companies of a certain size that deserve to be public.

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