The whole of the 20th century has always put the car at the center. So by putting the pedestrian first, you create these livable places, I think, with more attraction and interest and character.
Prince CharlesRead
I find myself born into this particular position. I'm determined to make the most of it. And to do whatever I can to help. And I hope I leave things behind a little bit better than I found them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of making a positive impact on the world and leaving it better than we found it.
Prince Charles reflects on his awareness of the circumstances into which he was born, expressing a strong determination to improve those conditions and assist others. This quote highlights a sense of responsibility and the desire to contribute positively to society, suggesting that individuals should strive to enhance the world around them in whatever ways they can.
Themes
ResponsibilityImpactBettermentDeterminismLegacy
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech to young leaders about making meaningful contributions.
More from Prince Charles
All quotes →Climate change should be seen as the greatest challenge to face man and treated as a much bigger priority in the United Kingdom.
Prince CharlesRead
If you think about the impact of climate change, [it should be how] a doctor would deal with the problem. A scientific hypothesis is tested to absolute destruction, but medicine can't wait. If a doctor sees a child with a fever, he can't wait for [endless] tests. He has to act on what is there. The risk of delay is so enormous that we can't wait until we are absolutely sure the patient is dying.
Prince CharlesRead
We might be more inclined to think about the longer term if we were more aware of what is happening around us. Perhaps daily weather forecasts could include a few basic facts about the Earth's vital signs or details of where climate change is increasing the likelihood of damaging weather?
Prince CharlesRead
The sustainability revolution will, hopefully, be the third major social and economic turning point in human history, following the Neolithic Revolution - moving from hunter-gathering to farming - and the Industrial Revolution
Prince CharlesRead
Any difficulties which the world faces today will be as nothing compared to the full effects which global warming will have on the world-wide economy.
Prince CharlesRead
Similar quotes
The personal vocabulary, the individual melody whose metre is one's biography, joins in that sound, with any luck, and the body moves like a walking, a waking island.
Derek WalcottRead
No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments. Fictions serve as well as facts.
Wallace StegnerRead
The problem is one of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality. But often what appears to a more subjective point of view cannot be accounted for in this way. So either the objective conception of the world is incomplete, or the subjective involves illusions that should be rejected.
Thomas NagelRead
To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.
Benjamin DisraeliRead
Can any man or woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace or their father and mother.
George EliotRead
When you once see something as false which you have accepted as true, as natural, as human, then you can never go back to it.
Jiddu KrishnamurtiRead