Never underestimate the power of intrinsic values. They inspire every struggle for a better world.
Interpretation
Intrinsic values drive us to improve the world around us.
This quote emphasizes the significance of intrinsic values, such as compassion, integrity, and justice, arguing that these ideals motivate individuals to strive for a better society. It suggests that when we recognize and embrace these values, they empower us to overcome challenges and inspire positive change in the world.
In practice
During a keynote speech at a conference on social change.
The notions that nature exists to serve us; that its value consists of the instrumental benefits we can extract; that this value can be measured in cash terms; and that what can't be measured does not matter, have proved lethal to the rest of life on Earth.
I believe that anyone who wants to stand in a national election should receive a course of psychotherapy. Completing the course should be a qualification for office. This wouldn't change the behaviour of psychopaths, but it might prevent some people who exercise power from imposing their own deep wounds on others.
I became an environmentalist because I love the living world, but I spend much of my life thinking about electricity, industrial processes and civil engineering.
Places that have become agricultural deserts, trashed by giant corporations, could be reforested, drawing carbon dioxide from the air on a vast scale. The ecosystems of land and sea could recover, not just in pockets but across great tracts of the planet.
Why is it so easy to save the banks - but so hard to save the biosphere?
It is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less. Strangest of all, it is a campaign not just against other people, but against ourselves.
I never studied writing, but I'd always been a reader and had a secret fantasy about being a writer.
We were all born carrying a promise -- a promise to make the world better -- and there's a yearning to make good on that promise that none of us can suppress forever.
I would have written 'Brown Girl Dreaming' if no one had ever wanted to buy it, if it went nowhere but inside a desk drawer that my own children pulled out one day to find a tool for survival, a symbol of how strong we are and how much we've come through.
A day will come when other Israelis will be launched into space in the service of science and progress. For them and for us, Ilan Ramon will always be a source of inspiration as Israel's space pioneer, and his memory will be engraved in our hearts forever.
He who endeavors to serve, to benefit, and improve the world, is like a swimmer, who struggles against a rapid current, in a river lashed into angry waves by the winds. Often they roar over his head, often they beat him back and baffle him. Most men yield to the stress of the current... Only here and there the stout, strong heart and vigorous arms struggle on toward ultimate success.
What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation - if not beauty?
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