Toomas Hendrik Ilves Quotes

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Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Profession : Politician

Birth : December 26, 1953

In a modern digitalized world, it is possible to paralyze a country without attacking its defense forces: The country can be ruined by simply bringing its SCADA systems to a halt. To impoverish a country, one can erase its banking records. The most sophisticated military technology can be rendered irrelevant. In cyberspace, no country is an island.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Everything can be known and, in some cases, everything is known.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

The rights that people have offline must also be protected online.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Big data knows and can deduce more about you than Big Brother ever could.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Since I've been writing about things my entire life, I thought, 'Well, that's what I would do as a president is to read and then write and talk about things that are interesting to me.'

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

People have actually figured out that Estonia is one of the few post-Communist countries that has a genuine image in people's minds as being something.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

I'm an American by accent, and I grew up in the States, living there between the age of three and 24.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

My American undergraduate education probably gave me a better idea of the fundamentals of what European civilization is about, better than the undergraduate education you get at most European universities.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

I was surprised by some of my French colleagues who immediately assumed that because I spoke English with an American accent, that, therefore, you must be a supporter of whoever is the current president of the United States. There seems to be this widespread feeling that, 'Oh, American accent - therefore, you like cowboy boots.'

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

George Bush and I share a love of steel brush cutters. It turns out we use the same professional brush cutter. He asked me what I did. I said I cut brush. He says, 'Oh, what do you use?' I said steel. He goes, 'Oh, me too.'

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Russia has had very aggressive military exercises. They've practiced mock nuclear attacks on Warsaw. Russian bombers practiced attacking strategic military targets in Sweden. The military aggression gets everybody nervous.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

It's much cheaper to influence elections than it is to go to war.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

I'm not afraid of code. I mean, I understand how these things work. I thought that that was the one area where Estonia was playing on a level playing field.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Little by little, we're becoming a boring Nordic country.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

There is no Baltic identity with a common culture, language group, religious tradition.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

We Estonians will do what is necessary to join the European Union.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Brits, Scandinavians, Finns, Estonians consider themselves rational, logical, unencumbered by emotional arguments; we are businesslike, stubborn, and hard-working.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

When your country is in dire straits, it doesn't matter whether you're a social democrat or not.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Generally, people's fear and hesitancy regarding greater computerization comes from a George Orwell/'1984'-based metaphor of a single computer or data base where all your information is stored, knows everything about you, and can use this information at will and for evil purposes.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves