Since the dawn of civilization, markets have been ubiquitous. Many of us have benefited from their focus and efficiency. Yet two widely held beliefs - that markets are best left unregulated and that markets are inherently benign - are naive and outdated.

Howard Gardner

Sam Cameron has managed the near impossible: to have lived in Number Ten for three years and maintained a benign and broadly positive press.

Andy Coulson

A lot of women these days, a lot of young women don't want to call themselves feminists. You have this cheap, hideous 'girl power' sort of fad, which I think is pretty benign at best, but at worst, I think it's a way of taking the politics out of feminism and making it some kind of fashion.

Ani DiFranco

When I was a kid, my mother's parenting style teetered between benign neglect and intense bouts of violence.

Ariel Gore

I look suspicious if I dress in sort of benign clothes, going to the airport.

Ariel Pink

Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west.

Azar Nafisi

Acidisation isn't benign - like fracking, it can pose risks to groundwater sources, and runs counter to the urgency with which we must shift away from fossil fuels.

Barry Gardiner

Most of the time, economic data is fairly benign. I don't wish to imply it is meaningless, but it is not a driver of stock markets. Indeed, the correlation between economic noise and how equity markets perform has been wildly overemphasized.

Barry Ritholtz

You get thought of in terms of your last job. So if my last job is that of a meat cleaver-wielding character, I will hardly be cast as some benign, older gentleman.

Ben Cross

It seems to me virtually any ideology, no matter how intrinsically benign, can be used to oppress. And any group with power, no matter how well-meaning, ultimately corrupts and ends up exploiting its advantage to some extent.

Bryan Konietzko

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

Carl Sagan

Being made to feel like an irrelevant child was probably an asset. Benign negligence is not a bad parental attitude or at least a cross between a benevolent dictator and benign negligence - you should just let kids crack on with it.

Clare Balding

The Spy Act strikes a right balance between preserving legitimate and benign uses of this technology, while still, at the same time, protecting unwitting consumers from the harm caused when it is misused and, of course, designed for nefarious purposes.

Cliff Stearns

Superman is a traditional archetype in our culture, this all-powerful but benign doer of good, protector and friend. If he could succumb to the frailties of mortal man, what's to become of the rest of us?

Dana Reeve

Eating a tuna roll at a sushi restaurant should be considered no more environmentally benign than driving a Hummer or harpooning a manatee.

Daniel Pauly

Happy for America, happy for Europe, perhaps for the world when, on the delivery of Cornwallis's sword to the illustrious, the immortal Washington, or rather by his order, to the brave Lincoln, the sun of Liberty and Independence burst through a sable cloud, and his benign influence was, almost instantaneously, felt in our remotest corners!

Deborah Sampson

I am very benign-looking. I'm somewhat like a golden retriever: It's not hard to look at me. I'm perfectly fine. It's not like things jut out and make you nervous. But the lovely thing about being so pale and having such pasty features is that I can look like pretty much anything, which is nice.

Elizabeth Mitchell

Miramax seems to be showing the same faith in Roberto Benigni's 'Pinocchio' that the Republican Party showed in Trent Lott; the live-action version of Carlo Collodi's fairy tale about the wooden puppet whose only ambition was to be a real live boy was sneaked into theaters Christmas Day.

Elvis Mitchell

I've heard directing talked about as being a benign dictatorship, and I think that's probably the best way a director should be. They're open to collaboration and feedback from people, but ultimately, it's got to be that one person's vision. That's what I think makes a film really stand out.

Felicity Jones

The year after Russell retired, in the famous seventh game of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, Willis Reed, the New York Knicks center, limped onto the court against the Los Angeles Lakers, inspiring his team and freezing Chamberlain into a benign perplexity.

Frank Deford

The nature of peoples is first crude, then severe, then benign, then delicate, finally dissolute.

Giambattista Vico