Jimmy Wales Quotes

People take issue with individual aspects of Wikipedia all the time. But it's kind of hard to hate the general idea of a free encyclopedia. It's like hating kittens.

- Jimmy Wales

I have always liked the idea of going to print because a big part of what we are about is to disseminate knowledge throughout the world and not just to people who have broadband.

- Jimmy Wales

I have always viewed the mission of Wikipedia to be much bigger than just creating a killer website. We're doing that of course, and having a lot of fun doing it, but a big part of what motivates us is our larger mission to affect the world in a positive way.

- Jimmy Wales

The core of Wikipedia is something people really believe in. That is too valuable for the world to screw it up.

- Jimmy Wales

The goal is to give people a free encyclopedia to every person in the world, in their own language. Not just in a 'free beer' kind of way, but also in the free speech kind of way.

- Jimmy Wales

My original concept was to provide a free encyclopedia for every single person in the world.

- Jimmy Wales

To create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language - That's who I am. That's what I am doing. That's my life goal.

- Jimmy Wales

What can we put into the hands of people under oppressive regimes to help them? For me, a big part of it is information, knowledge - the ability to defeat propaganda by understanding it.

- Jimmy Wales

We have to come together, worldwide, and 'think.' We have a tool - the internet - to let us do that. Let's use it wisely.

- Jimmy Wales

There's a big tendency to gravitate toward a closed and proprietary approach too easily.

- Jimmy Wales

One of the ways that Microsoft beat Apple way back in the day was that they were a lot more open; today, in the world I come from, the free software and open-source world, Microsoft is not generally viewed as open; they're viewed as proprietary.

- Jimmy Wales

We've seen how grassroots journalism by blogs has had an impact at various points politically, as ordinary people have amplified stories that were being ignored by the traditional press.

- Jimmy Wales

Massive numbers of people are going to come online from cultures we don't normally interact with.

- Jimmy Wales

The Supreme Court has held that code is speech. And it doesn't matter that it's done on a computer or done face to face or done in a newspaper, reporting the facts of the world is protected speech.

- Jimmy Wales

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.

- Jimmy Wales

The mainland Chinese tend to take a Chinese mainland point of view on controversial issues, and the Taiwanese take another the Taiwanese viewpoint.

- Jimmy Wales

I have zero interest in sports of any kind - professional, college or international.

- Jimmy Wales

People are not fundamentally bad. It only takes the smallest of correctives to take care of that tiny minority that wants to disrupt the community.

- Jimmy Wales

Almost anything is better than three network TV outlets completely controlling the national discourse with their nightly broadcasts. We've moved a long way from that, and that's important.

- Jimmy Wales

It just didn't occur to me, sitting at my computer, that I would end up travelling all over the world.

- Jimmy Wales

I have no regular schedule. I get up whenever I can.

- Jimmy Wales

If I had some information, the last thing I would ever do with it is send it to Wikileaks.

- Jimmy Wales

Our growth rate continues to be staggering.

- Jimmy Wales

Mostly, I try to take a rational approach to life.

- Jimmy Wales

While I'm optimistic about the direction the world is headed, generally, I think there is a need for constant vigilance and pressure on repressive governments.

- Jimmy Wales

Love. It isn't very popular in technical circles to say a lot of mushy stuff about love, but frankly it's a very very important part of what holds our project together.

- Jimmy Wales

I just get up every day and do what seems like the most interesting, fun thing to do.

- Jimmy Wales

Dialing down is not an option for me.

- Jimmy Wales

What you don't get in the mainstream media is so much of the background material.

- Jimmy Wales

I worry about censorship in many parts of the world.

- Jimmy Wales

If you see a blatant error or misconception about yourself, you really want to set it straight.

- Jimmy Wales

We are still in the very beginnings of the Internet.

- Jimmy Wales

My being some kind of celebrity - not a real celebrity, isn't a welcome part of the job.

- Jimmy Wales

People do fun and interesting things because they're fun and interesting.

- Jimmy Wales

I'm a big advocate of freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of thought.

- Jimmy Wales

I think that reality exists and that it's knowable.

- Jimmy Wales

A lot of people who work on open-source software don't mind making money elsewhere. They aren't anticommercial.

- Jimmy Wales

I still believe there is a need to open up search and it will come eventually. It is very important to challenge the current models.

- Jimmy Wales

It's kind of surprising that you could just open up a site and let people work.

- Jimmy Wales

I tend to eat things in fours. I'll eat four nuts, four grapes, four chips at a time. I don't know why. It's not really a superstition. I don't think anything bad will happen if I don't, but three potato chips doesn't seem right.

- Jimmy Wales

My view is that good community management is like having good municipal government: You should be able to have dissenting opinions and so on, freedom of speech, but your grandmother should also be able to walk down the street at night without having to worry about getting mugged.

- Jimmy Wales

I think people have to recognise that the traditional modes of authority weren't that great.

- Jimmy Wales

We don't need secrecy.

- Jimmy Wales

I think it's a mistake to treat different realms of knowledge as if they are some how fundamentally the same.

- Jimmy Wales

Things work well when a group of people know each other, and things break down when it's a bunch of random people interacting.

- Jimmy Wales

I can't do anything quietly anymore.

- Jimmy Wales

People who have achieved a public voice find it a mixed bag.

- Jimmy Wales

If it isn't on Google, it doesn't exist.

- Jimmy Wales

There's kind of this real social pressure to not argue about things.

- Jimmy Wales

Free speech includes the right to not speak.

- Jimmy Wales

A huge amount of what goes on in the Middle East has to do with people being fed really bad information.

- Jimmy Wales

Wikis and social networking are just tools.

- Jimmy Wales

I am really accessible.

- Jimmy Wales

You shouldn't use anything as the sole source for anything, in my view.

- Jimmy Wales

I'm very much an Enlightenment kind of guy.

- Jimmy Wales

I'm not real good at the administrative part of running a company.

- Jimmy Wales