Michael Bloomberg Thinking Quotations

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?

And I think the more money you put in people's hands, the more they will spend. And if they don't spend it, they invest it. And investing it is another way of creating jobs. It puts money into mutual funds or other kinds of banks that can go out and make loans, and we need to do that.

The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry. But we live in a complex world where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.

If you think of all the publicity about the terrible tragedy of Virginia Tech, we have a Virginia Tech in this country every day. It's just spread across 50 states.

I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom.

Canada sets aside 36 percent of their visas for people with skills they think their country needs. We set aside six percent. We educate the doctors, and then don't give 'em a green card.

Nobody should ever mistake and think that our country [USA] is weakened, or that authority is diffuse and unspecified, and that we are vulnerable.

When I care about something, I care about something. I think I have an obligation as an American to - and as a citizen, as - as a human being, to help others. Smoking is going to kill a billion people this century. I've put six hundred million dollars from my own money into trying to stop the tobacco companies from getting kids to smoke and convincing adults that it's not in their health.

I think we are not serious about attacking the long-term debt problem, and that's one of the things that he's going to have to find a way to get on the agenda.

I think that all money can do is to get your message out. Unfortunately, we live in a world where you have to use mass media to communicate with the people, and it just costs an awful lot of money.

Now, you might say, 'why should we pay people for doing what they're supposed to do?' It's a fair question -- but think of it this way. Every other anti-poverty program that's been tried has failed to get the national poverty rate below 11 percent. Why shouldn't we experiment with a program built around the one strategy that has proven time and again to work wonders -- capitalism?

In New York City, a lot of people think 'the great outdoors' is the area between your front door and a taxi cab.

We need to inject some old-fashioned American values and common-sense, practical thinking into our energy policy.

I think one of the great dangers here is going and categorizing anybody from one religion as a terrorist. That's not true... That would let the terrorists win. That's what they want us to do.

We're America, and we have to stop worrying about what happens overseas, and to be optimistic, even though nobody should think we're not going to have some difficult times.

We have an expression in New York City government - "In God we trust, but for everyone else, bring data." It's so easy to pick up a sound byte and say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I believe that," without really thinking.

I do not think that anybody should get paid for lousy performance. I've said that for a long time. If you work hard and you do good, you get paid well.