Top 58 Quotes & Sayings by Maurice Strong

I have a cow's valve in my heart.

Inertia is a powerful force in human and political affairs.

Also, it is interesting that developing countries, with China and India perhaps in the lead, where the future of the global environment will be decided are now on board with the case for sustainable development.

We in the industrialized world make a greater difference because our ecological footprint, our impact on the condition of the environment, is 40 to 50 times larger than that of people in the developing world.

So, what we do as individuals matters. It adds up.

I am on the board of corporations who contribute both to environmental problems and their solutions. And I am on the NGO side: the Earth Council and other organizations.

The tendency is to keep doing things the way you have done them.

I've always made it clear that I do not believe that global government is either necessary or feasible.

After all, sustainability means running the global environment - Earth Inc. - like a corporation: with depreciation, amortization and maintenance accounts. In other words, keeping the asset whole, rather than undermining your natural capital.

We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.

Ted Turner is still a leader. And he sets a great example. His ability financially has been reduced, but his influence and his example still is an important asset to the whole environmental movement.

In addition to this, they already have a fuel cell car on the road in Japan. It is subsidized from within the corporation because they are still at a high cost.

Rumors of my wealth are greatly exaggerated. I have never been interested in money.

I am retired from all my official roles, but I am still very active. I have close relationships at the U.N. I don't have any role at the U.N, but I'm still quite cooperative with a number of U.N. activities, in particular to China and that region.

I've developed a huge regard for Toyota for its environmental awareness, for its immense commitment to research and development in this field, and for its leadership in developing hybrids which others are now following.

Anyone who is seriously interested in me would usually do a little more homework and realise that the extreme criticisms are almost exclusively ideologically based.

Nevertheless, the concept of sustainable development is now known - even amongst those who haven't accepted it - and it's recognized, debated and followed by an increasing number of businesses.

Don't accept that you can't make a difference. Because if you can't make a difference, you won't make a difference, and if you put a multiplier on that we will continue on an unsustainable pathway.

We must, from here on in, all go down the same path... There may not be another chance.

A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmental damaging consumption patterns.

Toyota was the first to put a commercial fuel cell powered car on the road, and I have no doubt that Toyota will continue to be in the front lines in the development of competitive fuel cell vehicles.

Licences to have babies incidentally is something that I got in trouble for some years ago for suggesting even in Canada that this might be necessary at some point, at least some restriction on the right to have a child.

If you want to maintain a sustainable supply of fish you have to farm the fish, rather than mine them. So putting your money into fishing fleets that are going to exacerbate the problem by over-fishing is not the way to preserve the underlying asset.

I was with Ted Turner when he came to see Kofi Annan - the Secretary-General of the UN - to announce his decision to put $1 billion to the service of UN projects and programs.

We need what I have often called an ecological approach to the management of these resources and we do not have that now. We have the inertia of past habits, unsustainable habits.

We're either going to save Ihe world or no one will be saved.

My son is the main shareholder of my company, and I help him explore some of those opportunities that are related to things I know about, such as energy and the environment. But I'm active because I can't think of anything else to do in my so-called retirement.

My belief is that the purpose of economic life is to meet the social needs of people.

Well they do have a use, but we should never believe that any international conference is going to suddenly solve problems like the condition of the global environment.

The Prime Minister of India, at a meeting that I co-chaired a few months ago, stated that any development that is not sustainable is not development.

Not to say that corporations are perfect today, but even grand corporations like Dupont have made immense progress in translating some of their past environmentally damaging practices into new profit opportunities.

I learn something from criticism because when it comes from sources you respect you always examine it and learn.

One of the things that I've always thought I would like to do is to develop an environmental index. Then people can measure their own environmental performance on an index as they do in other ways.

I believe we are going to move into a situation where the more effective conferences will be smaller, more specialized, more focused, with occasional large gatherings to get the attention of the larger world.

I've got used to criticisms and, naturally, I try to make sure I don't listen to the more extreme ones because most of the people who have taken their right-wing extremist view of my life are people that I've never met.

I am President of the UN created University for Peace, which has a strong commitment to the relationship between peace, security and the environment. I meet with young people around the world and I always come away enthused and encouraged.

What pleases me most is that sustainable development is on almost everybody's agenda now.

The combination of population growth and the growth in consumption is a danger that we are not prepared for and something we will need global co-operation on.

Most of my supporters are people who actually know me. I just continue to do the best I can and I don't bother to try and respond to every little bit because the best response is just to keep on doing what you think is right.

I am convinced the prophets of doom have to be taken seriously.

We owe at least this much to future generations, from whom we have borrowed a fragile planet called Earth.

Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring this about?

A citizen of an advanced industrialized nation consumes in six months the energy and raw materials that have to last the citizen of a developing country his entire lifetime.

Developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma. It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class-involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing-are not sustainable. A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally damaging consumption patterns.

Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class…involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, ownership of motor vehicles, golf courses, small electric appliances, home and work place air-conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable...

It is the responsibility of each human being today to choose between the force of darkness and the force of light. We must therefore transform our attitudes, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of Divine Nature.

The Earth Charter is important as an expression of the commitment of people throughout the Earth to evoke their own deepest moral, spiritual and ethical principles in the task of ensuring a sustainable future for those who inhabit the Earth now and those who will follow us on the Earth.

Strengthening the role the United Nations can play...will require serious examination of the need to extend into the international arena the rule of law and the principle of taxation to finance agreed actions which provide the basis for governance at the national level. But this will not come about easily. Resistance to such changes is deeply entrenched. They will come about not through the embrace of full blown world government, but as a careful and pragmatic response to compelling imperatives and the inadequacies of alternatives.

The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of environmental security.

One of the things that Ive always thought I would like to do is to develop an environmental index. Then people can measure their own environmental performance on an index as they do in other ways.

Either we reduce the world's population voluntarily or nature will do this for us, but brutally

We're either going to save the world or no one will be saved.

Nothing less than the fate of the planet is at stake... No place on the planet can remain an island of affluence in a sea of misery.

What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries?... In order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?

Occupy World Street is a masterpiece which deserves to get wide circulation and commitment by world leaders.

The real goal of the Earth Charter is that it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments.

I am a socialist in ideology, a capitalist in methodology.

I've got used to criticisms and, naturally, I try to make sure I don't listen to the more extreme ones because most of the people who have taken their rightwing extremist view of my life are people that I've never met.