Harvard University Alumni

"Indians were a people who were capable of making the Iron Pillar of Delhi and the Sultanganj copper colossus of Buddha, and of hewing out blocks of sandstone 50 feet long and 4 feet square, carving them into a perfect roundness, givlllg them a wonderful polish whIch cannot be duplicated even today, and transporting them over distances of several hundred miles, must have attained considerable proficiency in metallurgy and engineering."

"Panini's grammar is the earliest scientific grammar in the world, the earliest extant grammar of any language, and one of the greatest ever written. It was the discovery of Sanskrit by the West, at the end of the 18th century, and the study of Indian methods of analyzing language that revolutionized our study of language and grammar, and gave rise to our science of comparative philology... The study of language in India was much more objective and scientific than in Greece or Rome."

"As one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence is by no means an exaggeration; no one who has had even a small acquaintance with that most remarkable book could fail to agree. In some four thousand sutras or aphorisms - some of them no more than a single syllable in length - Panini sums up the grammar not only of his own spoken language, but of that of the Vedic period as well. The work is the more remarkable when we consider that the author did not write it down but rather worked it all out of his head, as it were. Panini's disciples committed the work to memory and in tum passed it on in the same manner to their disciples.."

"While in the classical world scholars were dealing with language in a somewhat metaphysical way, the Indians were telling us what their language actually was, how it worked, and how it was put together. The methods and techniques for describing the structure of Sanskrit, which we find in Panini have not been substantially bettered to this day in modem linguistic theory and practice. We today employ many devices in describing languages that were already known to Panini's first two commentators."

"I trained hard. I spent the summer on a glacier. I trained with two-legged skiers but there weren't as many opportunities back then to compare myself to the other competitors, so I didn't know how I would do.""

"I had worked so hard to be able to participate, to qualify, to be a part of it. And then I was completely stunned at how well I did. It was a surprise to me,""

"I had to be an entrepreneur to raise the money, to hire trainers, to travel to where I could train and to create my own opportunities to be able to be a ski racer. There was no farm system to find one-legged black skiers in San Diego, California,"

"When I won, it was a shock to me and I think to everyone. And it was only later that I realised I was the first African-American to win," "Oh my gosh, that was very special. It was terrific. There's just so few African-Americans in the sport, but that was a great milestone."

""I do have to pinch myself sometimes to realise the barriers that I broke through. And I get very excited cheering on those who continue to break those barriers and change the world."

"Breaking through barriers in skiing has given me a lot of courage and fortitude to be able to make a difference for others. And I'm very proud that I get to do that."

"“As entrepreneurs, you need to go out and compete at the highest level, but you don’t have everything you would like to have,” she remarked. “You don’t get ideal equipment to fit you. Costs are tight. You get thrown into situations you can’t anticipate. You have to innovate and persevere.”"

"“I particularly love the word ‘adaptable’ because it includes both innovation and perseverance. You have to innovate. You’ve heard the Einstein quote about insanity, yes? Well I have the audacity to update Einstein. In today’s world, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same result. You can’t do the same thing you did last year and expect it to work. Things change. I have to keep reinventing myself and adapting my business. Over the years I've added services beyond keynote speaking like leadership training, facilitating global conferences, and writing books. Right now I’m working on a ‘train the trainer’ program on resilience that includes a personal app. You need to constantly be pushing the envelope, growing, developing and remaining agile. You learn those skills in sports, and you continue to use them as an entrepreneur.”"

"“I was fairly young when I learned to ski and realized I could be pretty good,” she said. “So I set my sights on going all the way to the Olympics. That drove me, and gave me a real fire. When I was waiting tables in Colorado, I wasn’t just a ‘ski bum’ – I was making my way to the U.S. team. That big goal made even the little things meaningful.” “Starting a business is always hard. When I left President Clinton's economic team, I began working as a writer and speaker and got pregnant with my daughter. I no longer had an office in the White House. So I needed to be relentless again, towards another really big goal—to help the best get even better in Corporate America.”"

"“I’ve had the opportunity to participate at world-class levels in so many arenas—sports, politics, academics and business—to work with the top leaders on Wall Street. Global political leaders. Top athletes. I love excellence and I love competition. To see it from so many sides is fascinating to me.”"

"“I think it’s amazing that Barbara invited her one-legged black friend from the wrong side of the tracks skiing,”"

"“I never expected to win a medal at all. Over 500 athletes from 22 countries gathered that year for the Paralympic Games. As the third-ranked amputee woman in the US, I had only barely made the cut. I was just happy to be there”."

"I think it's almost more moving because you're watching people that don't have perfect bodies and perfect genetics who are doing excellent and world class," says St. John. "And I think that's a great example for our children, for everyone, to say don't wait for things to be right before you go out and achieve excellence."

""One-legged black girl from San Diego becomes Olympic ski racer" is a crazy one."

"The resilience that I had to show to learn how to walk again after my leg was amputated to then become an athlete when nobody would even have me on high school teams. So taking that resilience and turning it around and saying how can I give that resilience to other people?""

"It’s great to learn that at an early age, that what happens to you doesn’t have to - you know it can make you feel a certain way but then you have the power to turn that around," she says. "And some adults have never learned that, right?"

"going towards the problem instead of away from it” and leadership as “helping people to see what isn’t there yet and help them build it.”"

"Generally, the best art comes from people that are a bit alienated from the system. I think it’s that friction that actually leads to making good books or good games, and not just being like, I’m a company man, or something for that system."

"I see gaming as having the possibility to be a profoundly empathetic experience. I think the idea of the gamer, like the capital-G Gamer, this kind of misogynist dude shouting insults at women, is antiquated and not true. If you look at it, there are so many people that have played games their entire lives, like myself, that don’t necessarily identify themselves as gamers in that sense...the idea that, again, the person who is a gamer is somebody who is less empathetic, less romantic, or less trying to seek human connection is sort of old fashioned or possibly just ignorant."

"I believe in the possibility for real human connections in virtual spaces. I also believe that the virtual version of yourself might very well be the best and truest version of yourself...We don’t have to necessarily be the worst versions of ourselves behind the mask of an avatar, though it often seems as if we are. People think we have it all figured out in certain ways, but in fact we’re just babies and toddlers when it comes to all these issues. We haven’t figured out exactly the best way to be good citizens, good humans online yet, and that’s OK. Because all these things are really young."

"I like to believe, as a writer, that anybody who isn't a reader yet has just not found the right book."

"I myself am mixed race — my mother is Korean and my father is an American Jew — so I've always felt other. But I think what's a little bit amazing about books, again, is the way in which they can sort of transcend that to an extent. And I also wanted the world as I see it — and the world as I see it is a world that is increasingly [filled] with people [of] different ethnicities."

"I think the reason I liked gaming so much as a subject was because it has all the subjects in it—it’s a grand subject."

"You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?"

"“The way to turn an ex-lover into a friend is to never stop loving them, to know that when one phase of a relationship ends it can transform into something else. It is to acknowledge that love is both a constant and a variable at the same time.”"

"privacy gives you creative freedom."

"We all live at that intersection of art and technology. That’s where games live, in a really easy way to see."

"Sometimes books don't find us until the right time."

"We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on"

"“And what is love, in the end?" Alabaster said. "Except the irrational desire to put evolutionary competitiveness aside in order to ease someone else's journey through life?”"

"Yes raster is faster, but raster is vaster, and vector just seems more correcter."

"Whatever we do, we have to make an impact at scale. Otherwise, it's not worth doing," she says."

"She also believes in betting big on innovation. "For example, we have 150 women in our R&D team in Ahmedabad, and they've filed patents that are strong worldwide, and can't be cracked. That's innovation.""

"You Italians have the most beautiful philosophy in the world. Which says: "Who does anything, gets it wrong". I have no difficulty in admitting I was wrong."

"Mutually beneficial relationships. Helping others has helped me throughout my career. Business leads come from people unexpectedly, often months after a random discussion. And this all starts with trying to figure out how to help others. I have learned over the years to focus on what I can give instead of what I can get. It’s a discipline that I continue to strive to uphold."

"In the face of difficult circumstances, be responsive, not reactive, Dara advises. There are things you can’t control, and there are things you can control. Separate the two."

"Too many people skim – they read a 50-word post on LinkedIn and now they think they’re an expert. I need people who are actually curious, who ask questions before they jump to judgment, people who listen to understand, not just to respond. I’m looking for people who have courage… when there’s tension, that’s when you have great work. You have to find people who have the courage to take risks"

"What I say to my team is that AI is raising the floor and the ceiling. You have to be AI proficient, but that’s just the floor, right? How do we crack and break through the ceiling"

"The walk track is the talk track. We do the work, then we talk about it"

"When you’re taking these risks, I always give the credit to the team, but you have to be willing to say, ‘Who’s the executive sponsor? Who is this hanging on?’ And you have to be willing to say, ‘Hey, this is all me.’ And so having that courage gives the team permission. Because when you show that you’re willing to take a risk, you’re willing to go out on a limb, that’s where great things happen, because you unlock the creativity of your team. But if you create a culture where no one wants to take any risks, you don’t get any reward"

"I want to become… I’m not going to be so bold as to say an expert, but I want to make sure that I know enough to be able to make good decisions. I know enough to be curious. I know enough to allocate resources in the right way"

"I use AI now almost every hour of every working day"

"This was an NBDB [never been done before]"

"We need a world where more people in positions of power reflect the population, and so I think about how I can contribute to that in a small way"

"This is a strategic brand partnership, but to actually get it all the way through, it had to be a cross-functional initiative, right?"

"It’s really about cohesively thinking of the job to be done, thinking about the tools in your toolkit and then bringing these things together in a way that drives results. I think a lot of myself as a conductor of an orchestra"