Bob Harris > Quotes

“India's linguistic diversity surprises many Westerners, but there are nearly thirty languages in India with at least a million native speakers. There are more native speakers of Tamil on our planet than of Italian. Likewise, more people speak Punjabi than German, Marathi than French, and Bengali than Russian. There are more Telugu speakers than Czech, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Slovak, and Swedish speakers combined.”
― Bob Harris, The International Bank of Bob: Connecting Our Worlds One $25 Kiva Loan at a Time

“Our lives take on meaning to the degree that our love and our actions are the same.”
― Bob Harris, The International Bank of Bob: Connecting Our Worlds One $25 Kiva Loan at a Time

“In high school, we barely brushed against Ogden Nash, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, or any of the other so-unserious writers who delight everyone they touch. This was, after all, a very expensive and important school. Instead, I was force-fed a few of Shakespeare's Greatest Hits, although the English needed translation, the broad comedy and wrenching drama were lost, and none of the magnificently dirty jokes were ever explained. (Incidentally, Romeo and Juliet, fully appreciated, might be banned in some U.S. states.) This was the Concordance again, and little more. So we'd read all the lines aloud, resign ourselves to a ponderous struggle, and soon give up the plot completely.”
― Bob Harris, Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy!

“A lot of charity is driven on pity. No one needs pity. A lot of people just need access to affordable capital to start or sustain businesses to support their families and their communities. And when I looked closely, the projects I lent money to through Kiva all made practical business sense.”
― Bob Harris

“It can be difficult to accept the limits on our ability to help others, and even harder to realize the limits on our wisdom, our kindness, our lives. It may be tempting just to turn away, think the worst of the world, and retreat into selfishness and fear. But when you help just one person, or let one person help you, it can be hard not to glimpse the better world so frustratingly near our grasp”
― Bob Harris