Top ten quotes of the day from Davos

After a day of discussions ranging from the future of Russia to what the West Wing tells us about intelligence, here are some of the day’s highlights.

You can watch the sessions following the links below. The shorter quotes were paraphrased for Twitter.

“Europe faces issues, but its destiny shines through the smoke and fog. I’m optimistic about Europe’s future”
Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF, in Resilient Dynamism

“Unless we take action on climate change, future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled.”
Christine Lagarde

“We’re not interested in excessively high commodity prices because they hinder the development of the global economy and the development of the Russian economy alike. But, should prices be too low, that would lead us to another extreme lack of resources to sustain economic growth. I believe that the current oil prices are, well, more or less optimal – or close to that – both for consumers and producers.”
Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, in Scenarios for the Russian Federation

“There is evidence that Africa is growing.  There is also evidence that African leaders have collectively come together to do things that will make Africa move forward.”
Jacob G. Zuma, President of South Africa, in De-risking Africa

“Africa’s story has been written by others; we need to own our problems and solutions and write our story.”
 Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda

“I’m in Davos discussing the urgent need for scaling up aid delivery in Syria.”
Baroness Valerie Amos, Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, United Nations, on Twitter.

“Social media is strengthening the supervision of Chinese officials, and this is a good thing”
Li Jingtian of the China Communist Party, in China 2020: Vision meets Reality

“The state sector needs to shrink.  In the last few years, the state sector has been expanding. This is the opposite of the direction we need to go. We know [state-owned-enterprises] are low-efficiency. When resources move from the high-efficiency private sector to the low-efficiency state sector, the economy declines. So if you talk about reform, the state sector needs to continue to be shrunk.”
Xu Xiaonian, Professor of Economics and Finance, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)

“Average IQ goes up by two to three points every decade. If you don’t believe it, compare Beverly Hillbillies to The West Wing”
Larry Summers, Harvard University professor, in his An Insight, an Idea session

“At the end of the day, all emerging markets offer growth. But today, really, the last bastion of big growth is the African continent. A billion people, of which 500 million are connected, and 500 million are yet to be connected.”
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer, in Derisking Africa