Top 50 Geoff Mulgan Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “All innovation is about letting go, saying goodbye to things to create space for the new.”

— Geoff Mulgan

2. “As the Internet of things advances, the very notion of a clear dividing line between reality and virtual reality becomes blurred, sometimes in creative ways.”

— Geoff Mulgan

3. “All of nationalism can be understood as a kind of collective narcissism.”

— Geoff Mulgan

4. “L’Oreal’s slogan ‘because you’re worth it’ has come to epitomise banal narcissism of early 21st century capitalism; easy indulgence and effortless self-love all available at a flick of the credit card.”

— Geoff Mulgan

5. “Huge sums are invested globally in medical research and development – and with good reason.”

— Geoff Mulgan

6. “Social innovation thrives on collaboration; on doing things with others, rather than just to them or for them: hence the great interest in new ways of using the web to ‘crowdsource’ ideas, or the many experiments involving users in designing services.”

— Geoff Mulgan

7. “I can think of nothing worse than a think-tank where everybody agreed.”

— Geoff Mulgan

8. “A tablet replacing an exercise book is not innovation, it’s just a different way to make notes.”

— Geoff Mulgan

9. “There is incredible potential for digital technology in and beyond the classroom, but it is vital to rethink how learning is organised if we are to reap the rewards.”

— Geoff Mulgan

10. “The longer you commute the less happy you’re likely to be.”

— Geoff Mulgan

11. “Teenagers learn best by doing things, they learn best in teams and they learn best by doing things for real – all the opposite of what mainstream schooling actually does.”

— Geoff Mulgan

12. “The most dynamic cities have always been immersed in the critical innovations of their time.”

— Geoff Mulgan

13. “The biggest barrier to dealing with climate change is us: our own attachment to habits that are hard to shift, and our great ability to park or ignore uncomfortable choices.”

— Geoff Mulgan

14. “The once-science-fiction notion of hyper-connectivity – where we are all constantly connected to social networks and other bubbling streams of digital data – has rapidly become a widespread reality.”

— Geoff Mulgan

15. “With a fractured sense of self, we come to depend on what people feed back to us – often mediated through social networks – not what we are. We have complex identities but may become less able to act as a subject – confident in what we really are.”

— Geoff Mulgan

16. “Before the Second World War, L’Oreal in France was an active supporter of the French fascists. The cosmetic group’s founder Eugene Schueller was an active member of the ‘Cagoule’ group, committed to the violent overthrow of the Third Republic, and hosted meetings at Oreal headquarters.”

— Geoff Mulgan

17. “There is a yearning for people to return to elementary moral virtues, such as integrity and commitment. We distrust people who have no centering of values. We greatly respect businessmen, for example, if they display those virtues, even if we don’t necessarily agree with the people.”

— Geoff Mulgan

18. “Advisers who think that they are very clever while all around them are a bit thick, and that all the problems of the world would be solved if the thick listened to the clever, are liable to be disappointed.”

— Geoff Mulgan

19. “A modest dose of self-love is entirely healthy – who would want to live in a world where everyone hated themselves? But taken too far, it soon becomes poisonous.”

— Geoff Mulgan

20. “One effect of an individualistic culture that’s poor at instilling mutual respect is that people jump more quickly to anger or violence.”

— Geoff Mulgan

21. “Understanding capitalism is in some ways simple. At its best, capitalism rewards creators, makers and providers: the people and firms that create valuable things for others, like imaginative technologies and good food, cars and drugs.”

— Geoff Mulgan

22. “The idea of entrepreneurship applies as much in politics, religion, society and the arts as it does in business.”

— Geoff Mulgan

23. “Deeper fulfilment is rather different from the happiness of seeing a good film or watching your team win at football, and it doesn’t come at the push of a button.”

— Geoff Mulgan

24. “Adelaide is becoming a hub for higher education.”

— Geoff Mulgan

25. “Courses can, and should, incorporate the excitement and fun of programming games, apps or even real digital devices.”

— Geoff Mulgan

26. “Young people who were relaxed about posting every detail of their life on Facebook become a lot less relaxed when they realise just how transparent their life has become to future employers.”

— Geoff Mulgan

27. “Health is already a dominant sector in most societies and the one most guaranteed to grow.”

— Geoff Mulgan

28. “The wrongful arrest of tens of thousands of British Muslims after the September 11 attacks can be explained by the very poor intelligence the police had, and, just possibly, excused by the fact that a terrorist action in Britain linked to British Muslims would have been hugely damaging.”

— Geoff Mulgan

29. “As with products on supermarket shelves, the public has a right to know where their financial products and services come from.”

— Geoff Mulgan

30. “Societies advance through innovation every bit as much as economies do.”

— Geoff Mulgan

31. “Democratic nation states remain far more capable of managing the circuit of coercion, taxation and legitimation than any transnational bodies.”

— Geoff Mulgan

32. “All real capitalisms are impure hybrids, mongrels mixed with other strains.”

— Geoff Mulgan

33. “The smug complacency of technology adverts disguises a pretty mixed picture, with too many people not connected, too many passive users of technologies designed for interactive, and far too much talk about empowerment but far too little action to make it happen.”

— Geoff Mulgan

34. “In Britain, polls show large majorities in favour of mansion taxes and higher taxes on the finance sector.”

— Geoff Mulgan

35. “Systems governed by only one set of rules are more vulnerable than those with variety.”

— Geoff Mulgan

36. “Spreading an idea is hard work.”

— Geoff Mulgan

37. “A lot of people in government don’t really read books at all.”

— Geoff Mulgan

38. “Cities simply don’t have the powers they need to radically innovate in cutting obesity or the number of disaffected teenagers.”

— Geoff Mulgan

39. “Even many of the teenagers who feel confident on navigating the web simply don’t have the skills needed to ‘write and create’ digital tools, not simply consume them.”

— Geoff Mulgan

40. “Many of the greatest composers and musicians do their best work in extreme confinement but we are seeing it in other fields – uses of technology to link people together in networks to solve problems and almost certainly we’ll get better ideas than we would from them just doing it on their own.”

— Geoff Mulgan

41. “Everyone knows of great projects that were too dependent on a charismatic individual, or simply too expensive to be replicated.”

— Geoff Mulgan

42. “Britain is rich in radicalism, and anyone who says that our society has drifted into fatalism and apathy should get out more.”

— Geoff Mulgan

43. “There are hardly any apprenticeships in care; hardly any schools preparing teenagers for jobs in care; and few signs that politicians know what to do to raise the status and rewards for what will soon be one of our most important industries.”

— Geoff Mulgan

44. “The most important innovators often don’t need any technologies – just imagination and acute sensitivity to people’s needs.”

— Geoff Mulgan

45. “Bangalore has become a centre for healthcare.”

— Geoff Mulgan

46. “Lots of creativity is and should be solitary.”

— Geoff Mulgan

47. “Governments that invest billions in new hardware still find it hard to accept that they might benefit just as much from systematic innovation in such things as child development or cutting crime.”

— Geoff Mulgan

48. “One of the lessons of history is that even the deepest crises can be moments of opportunity. They bring ideas from the margins into the mainstream.”

— Geoff Mulgan

49. “Computing should be taught as a rigorous – but fun – discipline covering topics like programming, database structures, and algorithms. That doesn’t have to be boring.”

— Geoff Mulgan

50. “In every capitalist economy there are anti-capitalist movements, activists, and even political parties; in a way, that there are no longer anti-democratic movements, activists, and parties.”

— Geoff Mulgan