Small Countries Quotes

“Lack of entitlement drives small nation’s success: they expect to adapt to outside forces, so they do.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“A society where everybody is paddling the same boat at a decent pace will move quicker and more effortlessly than one with a few speedsters and many laggards.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“The cost of conflict almost always outweigh the benefit of what is being fought over.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“Widespread distrust imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity It constricts and raises the cost of transactions.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“Much of the current debate focuses not on success but on failure. There is a shelf-load of books discussing flawed states such as ‘Why Nations Fail?’, ‘Is Democracy Dying?’ and ‘What’s Killing Liberalism?’. But as Harvard University’s Steven Pinker reminds us, ‘There are so many more ways for things to go wrong than to go right’, making success far more valuable to explain than failure.



Have we not heard enough about failure? After all, history shows that unlike lotteries, progress is usually a matter of finding something which works and reverse-engineering it.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“Nations do not spontaneously organize themselves to achieve higher Human Development Index rankings or PISA scores, lower CO2 emissions. Food does not fall on their plates, clothes on their backs or roofs over their heads. Well being and progress towards it, is what begs a better explanation.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“Given the predominance of bad news in the media arising from large nations, many might be surprised that some small, nimble, outperforming countries are doing exceptionally well. Nine of the top ten top ten positions in the United Nations Human Development Index are countries with populations of less than 20 million and seventeen of the top twenty. They took nine out of the top ten spots in IMD’s most recent Global Competitiveness Report. Nine of the ten happiest countries are small, successful nations.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“Singapore has found a way to provide cost-effective quality healthcare for its citizens with superior outcomes as 25% the cost of the US and 40% the cost of Europe. Israel has created a start-up ecosystem to rival Silicon Valley. Finland and Singapore consistently rank among the highest in PISA scores although their spending per pupil is among the lowest of OEDC nations. Zwolle, a town in the Netherlands, makes roads out of recycled plastic which are cheaper, last longer and are environmentally friendly. The Dutch pension system is the envy of the world. Swiss citizens passed a law to limit their congress’s ability to impose obligations on future generations, eliminating the moral hazard of elected officials engaging in “buy now, pay later” policy enactments. Ireland, once among the poorest nations in Europe now ranks among its most prosperous. Through its “Citizens Assemblies”, Petri dishes used to form political consensus at the ground level on sensitive matters such as abortion and gay marriage, it has morphed from one of the conservative societies to among the most liberal. New Zealand has just introduced ‘naked vegetables’, requiring produce in supermarkets to be sold without plastic packaging.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“Across the globe, these and other small nations are driving a quiet revolution towards progress. As such, they are the laboratories of the world, arriving at the future first.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“Since smaller nations are exposed to exogenous forces, they have greater incentive to experiment and innovate. Since they are better able to intermediate a political consensus the pathway from knowing to doing is more expedient.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“At the same time, we face unprecedented problems such as pandemics, global warming, aging populations and information distortion caused by social media. These are common problems and thus require shared solutions.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“New, experimental forms of multilateral organisations are required to come up with novel solutions. Traditional institutions driven by large nations are hamstrung due to: difficulties at home, heavy emphasis on self interest, unwieldy size and sclerotic bureaucracy.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“Success in smaller nations tend to be hidden because they lie off piste from the traditional corridor of information traffic stretching from Los Angeles, New York, London, Berlin, Shanghai and Tokyo.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“Gaining sway over the world’s treasures is no longer a matter of giant armies and navies but of winning trade battles and global contests for professional talent.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“It is important that Children grow up embracing meritocracy and egalitarianism, not privilege and elitism. That they learn at an early age to place more value on the community than the individual, on collaboration rather than rivalry and on social norms rather than regulation.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“Education experts emphasise the importance of PISA scores; of reading and mathematics. It is also important how a nation educates its children to become good citizens. There is no measure for this, despite its immense value to a well-functioning democracy.

For centuries great thinkers such as David Hume and Adam Smith have argued that greed and self-interest drive economic progress. But new evidence show that citizens of smaller nations place less value on money for its own sake than their counterparts in larger nations.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“Blackrock, the world’s largest manager and custodian of Index ETFs, is now the most important owner of multinational companies. Bizarrely, our capital market system, based on wide ownership of joint stock companies, has evolved to confer ownership on a group of fund managers with no intention, incentive or mandate to act in a responsible manner.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“To reform the most important aspects of the social contract such as education, health care, environment and pensions, requires boldness and steadfastness. It takes a generation to determine whether reforms have been successful so government policy must hold its course despite changes in prime ministers and control of parliament.”
― R. James Breiding, Too Small to Fail: Why Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World

“In an increasingly knowledge-based world, the nations which can attract and hold the most knowledgeable workers will be the most successful.”
― R. James Breiding

“The factor of nationalism in the small countries of Asia and Africa is an immensely important one, but it must be understood in its true character, as a manifestation of resistance on the part of these countries to conquest and domination by foreign powers, not as a form of extreme chauvinism.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire