Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. — Gro Harlem Brundtland
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. — Maurice Strong
True development must be in harmony with the needs of people and the rhythms of the natural world. — Sulak Sivaraksa
Without environmental sustainability, economic stability and social cohesion cannot be achieved — Phil Harding
A sustainable human community is designed in such a manner that its ways of life, technologies, and social institutions honor, support, and cooperate with nature's inherent ability to sustain life. — Fritjof Capra
We cannot choose between [economic] growth and sustainability - we must have both — Paul Polman
Sustainability is here to stay or we may not be — Niall FitzGerald
Sustainability takes forever. And that's the point. — William McDonough
Sustainability is a political choice, not a technical one. It's not a question of whether we can be sustainable, but whether we choose to be — Gary Lawrence
Sustainability is treating ourselves and our environment as if we are to live on this earth forever. — Arron Wood
You cannot, for instance, sustainably protect the environment if the majority of the people are still in primitive agriculture leading to the encroachment of forest reserves. — Yoweri Museveni
The future will be green, or not at all. This truth lies at the heart of humankind's most pressing challenge: to learn to live in harmony with the Earth on a genuinely sustainable basis. — Jonathon Porritt
Economic growth without investment in human development is unsustainable - and unethical. — Amartya Sen
Sustainable change, after all, depends not upon compliance with external mandates or blind adherence to regulation, but rather upon the pursuit of the greater good. — Douglas B. Reeves
Working together, all of us can embark on a path of green, low-carbon and sustainable development. — Xi Jinping
Short Sustainable Development Quotes
We learned that economic growth and environmental protection can and should go hand in hand. — Christopher Dodd
A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmental damaging consumption patterns. — Maurice Strong
There can be no lasting prosperity for our people if we do not protect our planet. — Rishi Sunak
Development is about transforming the lives of people, not just transforming economies. — Joseph Stiglitz
The struggle you're in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow.
Environmental Sustainability Sustainable Development Quotes
The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves. — Rachel Carson
Sustainable development is the pathway to the future we want for all. It offers a framework to generate economic growth, achieve social justice, exercise environmental stewardship and strengthen governance. — Ban Ki-moon
When future generations judge those who came before them on environmental issues, they may conclude "they didn't know": let us not go down in history as the generations who knew, but didn't care — Mikhail Gorbachev
An unbending tree is easily broken.
The scarcest resource is not oil, metals, clean air, capital, labour, or technology. It is our willingness to listen to each other and learn from each other and to seek the truth rather than seek to be right — Donella Meadows
Global markets must be balanced by global values such as respect for human rights and international law, democracy, security and sustainable economic and environmental development. — Anna Lindh
People 'over-produce' pollution because they are not paying for the costs of dealing with it. — Ha-Joon Chang
The elevator to success is out of order. You'll have to use the stairs. One step at a time.
The basic building block of peace and security for all peoples is economic and social security, anchored in sustainable development. It is a key to all problems. Why? Because it allows us to address all the great issues-poverty, climate, environment and political stability-as parts of the whole. — Ban Ki-moon
No sustainable development, environmental harmony or lasting security will happen if we are unable to eradicate hunger and extreme inequality — Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
We are challenged to develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
We need a new environmental consciousness on a global basis. To do this, we need to educate people. — Mikhail Gorbachev
Gandhi Quotes
Don't wait for a Gandhi, don't wait for a King, don't wait for a Mandela. You are your own Mandela, you are your own Gandhi, you are your own King. — Leymah Gbowee
Between what is going on in Iraq and Mumia being locked up unjustly, things going on in Israel, Palestine, we don't really have anyone right now like Gandhi. We don't have anyone like Martin Luther King or Malcolm X anymore. It's really a reference to a vision of hope, like someone like Gandhi. — Vinnie Paz
Laurel and Hardy. That's John and Yoko, and we stand a better chance under that guise, because all the serious people, like Martin Luther King, and Kennedy, and Gandhi, got shot. — John Lennon
The struggle you're in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow.
One was a book I read by Mahatma Gandhi. In it was a passage where he said that religion, the pursuing of the inner journey, should not be separated from the pursuing of the outer and social journey, because we are not isolated beings. — Satish Kumar
Gandhi became my role model. I have always been interested in Eastern philosophy. Since early in my life I've been fascinated by India, and I have spent a great deal of time traveling in that country. — Bianca Jagger
In life, purpose is defined by the thing that makes you angry. Martin Luther was angry; Mandela was angry; Mahatma Gandhi was angry; Mother Teresa was angry. If you are not angry, you do not have a ministry yet. — Myles Munroe
Begin to be what you will be hereafter.
Mahatma Gandhi will always be remembered as long as free men and those who love freedom and justice live. — Haile Selassie
From Gandhi to Mandela, from the American patriot to the Polish shipbuilders, the makers of revolutions have not come from the top. — Gary Hamel
On Gandhi: Don’t ever forget, that we were not lead by a saint with his head in clouds, but by a master tactician with his feet on the ground. — Shashi Tharoor
Martin Luther King and Gandhi were not people who failed in self-respect. They were people of hope and great courage, and their courage was disciplined. — Martha C. Nussbaum
Sustainability Quotes
God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours. — David Livingstone
Revolution is an inalienable right of mankind. Freedom is an imperishable birth right of all. Labor is the real sustainer of society, the sovereignty of the ultimate destiny of the workers. — Bhagat Singh
[O]ne of the most vital ways we sustain ourselves is by building communities of resistance, places where we know we are not alone. — Bell Hooks
Life is like photography we develop from the negatives.
Success in science and scientific work come not through the provision of unlimited or big resources, but in the wise and careful selection of problems and objectives. Above all, what is required is hard sustained work and dedication. — Lal Bahadur Shastri
Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment — David Attenborough
I am the fiery life of the essence of God; I am the flame above the beauty in the fields; I shine in the waters; I burn in the sun, the moon, and the stars. And with the airy wind, I quicken all things vitally by an unseen, all-sustaining life. — Hildegard of Bingen
Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.
A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. — Alexander Hamilton
No society can long sustain itself unless its members have learned the sensitivities, motivations and skills involved in assisting and caring for other human beings. — Urie Bronfenbrenner
Love is our only reason for living and the only purpose of life. We live for the sake of love, and we live seeking love... it is not surprising that we keep looking for love. All of us are nothing but vibrations of love. We are sustained by love, and in the end we merge back into love. — Swami Muktananda
You can make a lot of speeches, but the real thing is when you dig a hole, plant a tree, give it water, and make it survive. That's what makes the difference — Wangari Maathai
Environmental Sustainability Quotes
Quite frankly, there is no answer to climate change without substantially, dramatically, increasing the amount of renewable energy in the global energy system. — Christiana Figueres
This planet might be able to support perhaps as many as half a billion people who could live a sustainable life in relative comfort. Human populations must be greatly diminished, and as quickly as possible to limit further environmental damage. — Eric Pianka
Listen up, you couch potatoes: each recycled beer can saves enough electricity to run a television for three hours. — Denis Hayes
Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the stepping stones to success.
Where the quality of life goes down for the environment, the quality of life goes down for humans. — George Holland
The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is compassionate, prosperous, and enduring, and thus more intelligent, even competitive. — Paul Hawken
No institutions in modern society are better equipped to catalyze the necessary transition to a sustainable world than colleges and universities. They have access to the leaders of tomorrow and the leaders of today. What they do matters to the wider public. — David W. Orr
Good leaders develop ideas.Great leaders develop people.The best leaders develop new leaders.
Our presence on this planet does not seem to be sustainable. Our technical civilization makes up particularly vulnerable. There is talk all over the scientific community about climate change. Many of them [scientists] agree, the end of human life on earth is assured. — Werner Herzog
Corporate globalists and the corporate empires they serve may be at the cutting edge of technological innovation, but socially and environmentally they are relics of a bygone era of imperial colonial rule, elite privilege, and state-sanctioned plunder. — David Korten
Be Thou praised, my Lord, of our Sister Mother Earth, which sustains and hath us in rule, and produces divers fruits with coloured flowers and herbs. — Francis of Assisi
The dialogue about sustainability is about a change in the human trajectory that will require us to rethink old assumptions and engage the large questions of the human condition that some presume to have been solved once and for all. — David W. Orr
Sustainable Living Quotes
Mindfulness means moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness. It is cultivated by refining our capacity to pay attention, intentionally, in the present moment, and then sustaining that attention over time as best we can. In the process, we become more in touch with our life as it is unfolding. — Jon Kabat-Zinn
We labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life because it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think. Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself. — Friedrich Nietzsche
We live not, in reality, on the summit of a solid earth but at the bottom of an ocean of air — Thales
Life is like photography, you use the negatives to develop
The Ego, however, is not who you really are. The ego is your self-image; it is your social mask; it is the role you are playing. Your social mask thrives on approval. It wants control, and it is sustained by power, because it lives in fear. — Deepak Chopra
To annihilate indigenous populations eventually paves the way to our own annihilation. They are the only people who practice sustainable living. We think they are relics of the past, but they may be the gatekeepers to our future. — Arundhati Roy
To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top. — Robert M. Pirsig
We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. ... This is exactly what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living object's sole reason for living. — Richard Dawkins
Prayer is the most powerful form of energy one can generate....It supplies us with a flow of sustaining power in our daily lives. — Alexis Carrel
Change is constant and touches every area of our lives, so it’s imperative to be able to adapt. — Vladimer Botsvadze
Gujarat, with its all inclusive, sustainable and rapid growth, is emerging as a globally preferred place to live in and to do business. — Narendra Modi
The next 1,000 unicorns won’t be search engines or social media companies, they’ll be sustainable, scalable innovators – s that help the world decarbonize and make the energy transition affordable for all consumers. — Larry Fink
We need to gain an accurate understanding of what sustainable development means, put the people first, and strike a balance between economic growth, ensuring people’s well-being, and energy conservation and emissions reduction. — Xi Jinping
We’ll get spades in the ground to make sure people are not facing unaffordable energy bills and we will also make sure that we are building hospitals, schools, roads and broadband. — Liz Truss
The Moscow energy system has never sustained such a load. — Anatoly Chubais
I will deal hands on with the energy crisis caused by Putin’s war. I will take action this week to deal with energy bills and to secure our future energy supply. — Liz Truss
We can encourage more of our universities and municipalities, foundations, corporations, individuals and cultural institutions... to move their money out of the problem (fossil fuels) and into the solutions (renewable energy) — Desmond Tutu
Climate change is real, caused by human activity and already devastating our nation and planet. The United States must lead the world in combating climate change and transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainability. — Bernie Sanders
Sustainable development: Meeting present needs without compromising the stock of natural resources remaining for future generations. In terms of buildings, it implies resource efficiency, minimum energy use, flexibility and long life — Richard Rogers
Sustainable energy + food security + healthy environment = full employment + better future. — Phil Harding
Being Sustainable Quotes
Productivity and efficiency can be achieved only step by step with sustained hard work, relentless attention to details and insistence on the highest standards of quality and performance. — J. R. D. Tata
The earth which sustains humanity must not be injured. It must not be destroyed! — Hildegard of Bingen
I am where God wills me to be, and so I have found rest and security. His wisdom governs me, His power defends me, His grace sanctifies me, His mercy encompasses me, His joy sustains me and all will go well with me. — Rose Philippine Duchesne
We do not accept that human society should be constructed on the basis of a savage principle of the survival of the fittest — Thabo Mbeki
We are free, but not to be evil, not to be indifferent to human suffering, not to profit from the people, from the work created and sustained through their spirit of political association, while refusing to contribute to the political state that we profit from. — Jose Marti
Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy. — William Butler Yeats
I wanted something very dense, something that would sustain long and more pieces of wood that would be soft, sweet, for more of a mellow sound. — Les Paul
The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage. — Arie de Geus
May faith be the torch which illuminates, animates, and sustains you. — Margaret Mary Alacoque
To sustain the belief that there is no God, atheism has to demonstrate infinite knowledge, which is tantamount to saying, “I have infinite knowledge that there is no being in existence with infinite knowledge — Ravi Zacharias
Sustainable Agriculture Quotes
Humans merely share the Earth. We can only protect the land, not own it. — Chief Seattle
Climate and digitalisation – will bring changes for all, but let there be no doubt: Farming will remain a valued part of our culture and our future. — Ursula von der Leyen
I want Britain to lead the world in food and farming and to do that we need enough productive agricultural land. — Liz Truss
I’m very concerned that a lot of our land is being taken up with solar farms. — Liz Truss
Agricultural sustainability doesn't depend on agritechnology. To believe it does is to put the emphasis on the wrong bit of 'agriculture.' What sustainability depends on isn't agri- so much as culture. — Raj Patel
If we don't get sustainability right in agriculture first, it won't happen anywhere. — Wes Jackson
As we search for a less extractive and polluting economic order, so that we may fit agriculture into the economy of a sustainable culture, community becomes the locus and metaphor for both agriculture and culture. — Wes Jackson
There won't be some overnight miracle cure. But the measures I take will be sustainable. Our goal is to cease food imports within four years. This will create a minimum of 2 million jobs in agriculture. — Ashraf Ghani
It is only with local [agriculture] that we can manage the complexity and care that sustainability requires. — Vandana Shiva
I believe we can create a truly humane, sustainable, and health food production system without killing any animals. I imagine a revolution in veganic agriculture in which small farmers grow a variety of vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes, all fertilized with vegetable sources. — Gene Baur
Sustainably Quotes
A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable — Thabo Mbeki
We share this planet, our home, with millions of species. Justice and sustainability both demand that we do not use more resources than we need. — Vandana Shiva
I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his honour and that of his country, Victory or death. — William B. Travis
Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance. — Kofi Annan
I wish for everyone to help create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity. — Jamie Oliver
When a certain number of people come together and they choose at a moment in time to create a precise emotion in their hearts, that emotion literally can intentionally influence the very fields that sustain the life on planet earth. — Gregg Braden
Confidence is the most important single factor in this game, and no matter how great your natural talent, there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work. — Jack Nicklaus
Every time you sustain a head injury, the risk gets higher and higher. I always said that if there ever was a point where the risk was more than minimal, I would stop playing. — Pat LaFontaine
If we achieve our sustainability targets and no one else follows, we will have failed. — Paul Polman
The Irishman sustains himself during brief periods of joy by the knowledge that tragedy is just around the corner. — William Butler Yeats
Unsustainable Quotes
Today, the top one-tenth of 1% owns nearly as much wealth as the bottom 90%. The economic game is rigged, and this level of inequality is unsustainable. We need an economy that works for all, not just the powerful. — Bernie Sanders
The reality is that a consumer culture which chucks out its iPhones for a new version every nine months is completely unsustainable, because Earth has already reached the tipping point. 'The General Strike' attempts to personalize these issues and encourage listeners to look for a new model. — Justin Sane
If you want another world war, run up unsustainable debts. — Tucker Carlson
I ran for Congress not because I was having a mid-life crisis. I left the private sector because I saw a looming financial crisis that was coming to this country. It's unsustainable. — Steve Daines
People of my generation knew we needed to move beyond that, the racial division and segregation and unsustainable social relations, that were unfair to millions of people. But it didn't mean that we were going to become a big government liberal. — Jeff Sessions
It’s unsustainable. Look at Ethereum, if you move a dollar you have to spend fifty dollars, that’s crazy. — Charles Hoskinson
The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists. — Benjamin Graham
The communist model does not work economically, we all realised that, but the capitalist model in the modern world also looks to be unsustainable. — Arsene Wenger
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. — Maurice Strong
I would make a difference by banning unsustainable palm oil in order to save the rainforest and orangutan habitats along with the rest of the three hundred thousand other species that live in the rainforest. — Katie Cleary
Cities must urge urban planners and architects to reinforce pedestrianism as an integrated city policy to develop lively, safe, sustainable and healthy cities. It is equally urgent to strengthen the social function of city space as a meeting place that contributes toward the aims of social sustainability and an open and democratic society. — Jan Gehl
We will become a global advocate for rainforest preservation and marine restoration. We will rethink development policies that promised economic growth while ignoring ecological sustainability, and ended up delivering neither. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
The civilised, advanced nation we seek to build and the sustainable development that we are keen to achieve both require concerted efforts from all sectors of the community and from all public and private entities and organisations. They require consistent and harmonious work in order to achieve our goals and promote and underpin our nation's status with its distinct role regionally and internationally. — Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan
Open markets offer the only realistic hope of pulling billions of people in developing countries out of abject poverty, while sustaining prosperity in the industrialized world. — Kofi Annan
The African Union has to act in order to put an end to armed conflicts that undermine the continent, to fight against the devastation caused by AIDS and other contagious diseases, to promote sustainable development of its member states. — Omar Bongo
At every level the greatest obstacle to transforming the world is that we lack the clarity and imagination to conceive that it could be different — Roberto Unger
We live on this very small and fragile planet: a world in which there is poverty and injustice is never going to be a safe and secure world — Hilary Benn
Positive deviance means doing the right thing for sustainability, despite being surrounded by the wrong institutional structures, the wrong processes and stubbornly uncooperative people. That is what sustainability-literate leadership means today. Surrounded by evidence of rampant unsustainability it is not possible to say 'I did not know' — Sara Parkin
The way to healthy living is to shift from quantitative economic growth to quality of life, food, water and air - to shift from craving to contentment and from greed to gratitude — Satish Kumar
Peace, non-violence, human rights and the environment - if only everybody saw these as the seamless whole that they are — Jonathon Porritt
You don’t know what order with freedom means! You only know what revolt against oppression is! You don’t know that the rod, discipline, violence, the state and government can only be sustained because of you and because of your lack of socially creative powers that develop order within liberty! — Gustav Landauer
What politician ever thinks beyond 4 or 5 years? But such thinking is hopelessly inadequate for the big questions that involve the fabric of the world we live in — Simon Barnes
Western civilization is a loaded gun pointed at the head of this planet. — Terence McKenna
A safe and nutritionally adequate diet is a basic individual right and an essential condition for sustainable development, especially in developing countries. — Gro Harlem Brundtland
We have reached the end of problem solving as a mode of inquiry capable of inspiring, mobilizing, and sustaining human system change. The future of Organization Development belongs to methods that affirm, compel, and accelerate anticipatory learning involving larger and larger levels of collectivity. — David Cooperrider
Rethinking the future: It is a profound challenge, at the end of an era of cheap oil and materials to rethink and redesign how we produce and consume; to reshape how we live and work, or even to imagine the jobs that will be needed for transition — Ellen MacArthur
Entrepreneurship is the cornerstone to African development and the key to local value creation in Africa. I am determined to ensure that Africa's next generation of entrepreneurs have the platform they need to turn their entrepreneurial aspirations into sustainable businesses that will drive economic growth and job creation across Africa. — Tony Elumelu
Once you realize that you have identified a passion, invest in yourself. Figure out what you need to know, what kind of experience and expertise you need to develop to do the things that you feel in your heart you will enjoy and that will sustain you both mentally and economically. — Martha Stewart
It makes no sense to invest in [fossil fuel] companies that undermine our future — Desmond Tutu
Education brings sustainability to all the development goals, and literacy is the foundation of all learning. It provides individuals with the skills to understand the world and shape it, to participate in democratic processes and have a voice, and also to strengthen their cultural identity. — Irina Bokova
Acknowledging our love for the living world does something that a library full of papers on sustainable development and ecosystem services cannot: it engages the imagination as well as the intellect. It inspires belief; and this is essential to the lasting success of any movement. — George Monbiot
his planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. — Paul Hawken
If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age. — Jacques Barzun
The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least not try to defy them — Paul Hawken
In Conclusion
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