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QUOTATIONS
Sustainability
"The future will be
green, or not at all" - Sir Jonathon Porritt
"Sustainable Development is Development that meets
the needs of present generations without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs." - The Brundtland Report. |
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"The essence of sustainability
is using resources so that you renew them, not deplete
or pollute them. And we need this not only for the environment:
sustainability is vital for individuals,communities
and businesses. Sharing resources and mutual support
are vital for sustainability" Alan Heeks,
The Threshold Centre, Gillingham,Dorset
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Martin Luther King
Now, I say
to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties
of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a
dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a
dream that one day this nation will rise up and live
out the true meaning of its creed: - 'We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal.' - Speech at Civil Rights March on Washington,
August 28, 1963
I submit that an individual who breaks
a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly
accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse
the conscience of the community over its injustice,
is in reality expressing the highest respect for the
law.
Our lives begin to end the day we become
silent about things that matter.
We must learn to live together as brothers
or perish together as fools.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional
love will have the final word in reality. That is why
right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous
than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
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Injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice everywhere.
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial
political and moral questions of our time; the need
for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without
resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve
for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge,
aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such
a method is love.
I submit to you that if a man hasn't
discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to
live.
The ultimate measure of a man is not
where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual
power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
...And I've looked over, and I've seen
the promised land. I may not get there with you, but
I want you to know tonight that we as a people will
get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm
not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.
- Speech in Memphis, 1968, the day before King was assassinated
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Mahatma Gandhi
| You must be the change
you want to see in the world.
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters
and photographers.
I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe
in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before
any one even at the cost of your life.
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path
in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive
resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is
a long and arduous quest after Truth. |
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Whatever you do will be
insignificant, but it is very important that you do
it.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote
freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human
beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight
in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
I think it would be a good idea - when asked what he
thought of Western civilization
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Helen Keller
| The best and
most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or
even touched. They must be felt within the heart.
We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there
were only joy in the world.
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but
often we look so long at the closed door that we do
not see the one which has been opened for us.
When we do the best that we can, we never know what
miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it
has found no remedy for the worst of them all - the
apathy of human beings.
College isn't the place to go for ideas.
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Although the world is full
of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only
through experience of trial and suffering can the soul
be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
I do not want the peace which passeth understanding,
I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security
does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men
as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer
in the long run than exposure.
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes
true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification
but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. |
Francis Bacon
A wise man will make more
opportunities than he finds.
Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant
when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth
best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover
virtue. |
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Death is a friend of ours;
and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at
home.
In charity there is no excess. |
Winston Churchill
A love for tradition has
never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened
nations in their hour of peril.
All great things are simple, and many can be expressed
in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy,
hope.
Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it
be postponed.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it
will eat him last.
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I like pigs. Dogs look up
to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another
with no loss of enthusiasm.
I would say to the House, as I said to those who have
joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but
blood, toil, tears, and sweat."
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Plato
| Be kind, for everyone you
meet is fighting a hard battle.
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs
is to be ruled by evil men.
You can discover more about a person in an hour of
play than in a year of conversation.
Necessity, who is the mother of invention.
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False words are not only
evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares
nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious
only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
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J. K. Rowling
It takes a great deal of
courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to
stand up to your friends.
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far
more than our abilities.
The best of us must sometimes eat our words.
Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when
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It is the unknown we fear
when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.
The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and
must therefore be treated with great caution.
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.
To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great
adventure. |
Henry David Thoreau
Any fool can make a rule,
and any fool will mind it.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live
the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life,
the laws of the universe will be simpler.
However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do
not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty
like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself
much to get new things, whether clothes or friends.
Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and
keep your thoughts. God will see that you do want society.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need
not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the
foundations under them.
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do
right. Men will believe what they see.
It is never too late to give up your prejudices.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps
it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him
step to the music which he hears, however measured or
far away.
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
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Rather than love, than money,
than fame, give me truth.
That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life
which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately
or in the long run.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the
true place for a just man is in prison.
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable
planet to put it on?
Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life, and see if
I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when
I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom
on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate
handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another
thus tenderly.
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from
the reading of a book. |
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