Category: Quotes

“Governing institutions have been suborned by vested interests obsessed with short-term gain rather than long-term sustainability.” Al Gore, 45th US Vice President, in his book The Future

“Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” Native American proverb (various sources)

“Intergenerational justice, intergenerational fairness and equality is going to be the issue of the next 10 or 15 years. Is this generation, my generation, going to do right by the younger generation?” Ed Miliband, January 2012

“As a species, our brains have just not evolved to deal with threats whose effects will be felt in what, for us, counts as the remote future. We respond to them by ignoring them.” Daniel Kahneman, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University, Nobel Laureate in Economics

“A politician thinks about the next elections — the statesman thinks about the next generations.” James Freeman Clarke (1810–88), American theologian and author

“Our ancestors were able to live in peace with nature and with their past and future generations. We have to learn it again and to recreate these functions and institutions that serve our survival. This is our only chance – we should not miss it.” Sandor Fulop, Hungarian Ombudsman for Future Generations

“I welcome the creation of an organisation that understands that the consideration for future generations must be at the heart of policy making in any civilised society,” Professor Laurence Kotlikoff on IF

“After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.” Corinthians 12, verse 14b