Quotes from Jim Yong Kim

I feel like I'm calmer, I'm kinder, I'm more patient the more I do my own meditation.

Many people could benefit from meditation.

What I learned from my work as a physician is that even with the most complicated patients, the most complicated problems, you've got to look hard to find every piece of data and evidence that you can to improve your decision-making. Medicine has taught me to be very much evidence-based and data-driven in making decisions.

Why is it that when it comes to our most cherished social goal [health care], we not only tolerate poor execution, sometimes we even celebrate it?

Economic development and poverty alleviation are so complicated that I don't think there's a single background or a single discipline that is sufficient to tackle these great human problems.

We will never end poverty if we don't tackle climate change.

What happens when corn and wheat prices rise is that we see real increases in malnutrition and under-nutrition. And when children are malnourished, their brain development actually slows down and is affected. So this is not just a short-term impact.

Haiti's economy cannot be built by and benefit just a privileged few. It must be built by and benefit all Haitians.

The water issue is critically related to climate change. People say that carbon is the currency of climate change. Water is the teeth.

I've always been engaged in social protection programmes.

The relationship between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala fundamentally changes with meditation.

One of the most important things about leadership is that you have to have the kind of humility that will allow you to be coached.

We are watching things happen with one degree changes in ocean temperature that we thought wouldn't happen until there were two or three degree changes in ocean temperature. These are facts.

One of the lessons of leadership worth emphasizing is that you want to get to know other great leaders and take their advice. At some point in your development, it's only people who've been in the seat of having to be leaders who can help you in a deep way.

Institutionalized discrimination is bad for people and for societies. Widespread discrimination is also bad for economies. There is clear evidence that when societies enact laws that prevent productive people from fully participating in the workforce, economies suffer.

I think one of the main challenges that the World Bank faces is creating an organizational structure that doesn't get in the way of its staff. We have fantastic staff. People told me as I was coming into the organization that the greatest asset of the World Bank Group is its staff, and I think there's no question that that's the case.

World Bank is a bank that's focused on economic development and poverty alleviation.

I want to eradicate poverty. I think that there's a tremendous passion for that inside the World Bank.

My father came by himself across the North Korean border when he was seventeen. And hasn't seen his brothers or sisters or parents since then. And he died some time ago, but never saw any of his relatives. My mother was a refugee in war-torn Korea.

I've spent my entire life working to invest in human beings and human communities, to help them move down the path of economic development.

Growing economies are critical; we will never be able to end poverty unless economies are growing. We also need to find ways of growing economies so that the growth creates good jobs, especially for young people, especially for women, especially for the poorest who have been excluded from the economic system.

A lot of young people don't think they can make a difference. That's really what I am at Dartmouth to do. I'm there to tell the young people, 'Look, a few committed souls can change the world.'

Social media has changed the world forever. We're not going to go backwards. People are not going to accept being poor, accept being excluded anymore.

No matter how good you think you are as a leader, my goodness, the people around you will have all kinds of ideas for how you can get better. So for me, the most fundamental thing about leadership is to have the humility to continue to get feedback and to try to get better - because your job is to try to help everybody else get better.