231 Quotes by Melinda Gates

Sometimes it's the people you can't help who inspire you the most.

Women and girls should be able to determine their own future, no matter where they're born.

What great changes have not been ambitious?

In different places you run into myths around vaccination or around family planning. In the United States, one of the myths that existed for a long time, that has been completely debunked, was that autism was linked to a vaccine.

It’s a delicate thing to initiate change in a traditional culture. It has to be done with the utmost care and respect. Transparency is crucial. Grievances must be heard. Failures must be acknowledged. Local people have to lead. Shared goals have to be emphasized. Messages have to appeal to people’s experience. The practice has to work clearly and quickly, and it’s important to emphasize the science.

If you don’t accept the suffering, hurt can turn to hatred.

Philanthropy is not about the money. It’s about using whatever resources you have at your fingertips and applying them to improving the world.

Government funding that’s coming from the United States is making a huge difference on the ground in the developing world. It’s really palpable – it’s making a huge difference saving lives.

In the developing world, it’s about time that women are on the agenda. For instance, 80 percent of small-subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are women, and yet all the programs in the past were predominantly focused on men.