The message from history is so blatantly obvious - that free trade causes mutual prosperity while protectionism causes poverty - that it seems incred…

- Matt Ridley

Our minds have been built by selfish genes, but they have been built to be social, trustworthy and cooperative.

- Matt Ridley

Futurology always ends up telling you more about your own time than about the future.

- Matt Ridley

Society works not because we have consciously invented it, but because it is an ancient product of our evolved predispositions. It is literally in ou…

- Matt Ridley

The interaction of genetic and external influences makes my behaviour unpredictable, but not undetermined. In the gap between those words lies freedo…

- Matt Ridley

Prosperity has brought complications. Our lives are busier, faster, more stressful. They're nostalgic for a simpler, slower time.

- Matt Ridley

This idea holds out hope that the human race will prosper mightily in the years ahead-because ideas are having sex with each other as never before.

- Matt Ridley

Trade is 10 times as old as farming.

- Matt Ridley

The body is merely an evolutionary vehicle for the gene

- Matt Ridley