Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Tolerance is the one essential ingredient ... You can take it from me that the Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance.
If anyone has a new idea in this country, there are twice as many people who keep putting a man with a red flag in front of it.
I didn't want to be president of the World Wildlife Fund. I was asked to do it. I'd much rather have stayed in the navy, frankly.
People think there's a rigid class system here, but dukes have been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans.
It seems to me that it's the best way of wasting money that I know of. I don't think investments on the moon pay a very high dividend.
In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.
There was no precedent. If I asked somebody, 'What do you expect me to do?' they all looked blank. They had no idea; nobody had much idea.
A horse which stops dead just before a jump and thus propels its rider into a graceful arc provides a splendid excuse for general merriment.
But we are not going to be able to survive on this limited planet if the population keeps on growing: there isn't going to be anything left.
If a cricketer suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, are you going to ban cricket bats?
There are always twenty excellent reasons for doing nothing for every one reason for starting anything-especially if it has never been done before.
People can't get their heads round the idea of a species surviving; you know, they're more concerned about how you treat a donkey in Sicily or something.
It would have been very easy to play to the gallery, but I took a conscious decision not to do that. Safer not to be too popular. You can't fall too far.
During the Blitz, a lot of shops had their windows blown in and put up notices saying, 'More open than usual'. I now declare this place more open than usual.
The more people there are, the more food we need, the more space we occupy, the more resources and consumer goods we wish to have and the more development has to take place
All these other creatures have an equal right to exist here. We have no prior rights to the Earth than anybody else, and if they're here, let's give them a chance to survive.
I reckon I've done my bit. I want to enjoy myself a bit now, with less responsibility, less frantic rushing about, less preparation, less trying to think of something to say.
And if we could get the local leaders to appreciate their responsibility for the environment then they would be able to explain that responsibility to the people of their faith.
If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.
Wildlife of the world is disappearing, not because of a malicious and deliberate policy of slaughter and extermination, but simply because of a general and widespread ignorance and neglect.
There is nothing like it for morale to be reminded that the years are passing - ever more quickly - and that bits are dropping off the ancient frame. But it is nice to be remembered at all.
If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort - provided you don't travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.
The world population 60 years ago was just over 2 billion and it's now more than 6 billion. This huge increase - an explosion really - has probably done more harm to the environment than anything else.
For conservation to be successful it is necessary to take into consideration that it is a characteristic of man that he can only be relied upon to do anything consistently which is in his own interest.
I therefore suggested that WWF should invite leaders from the major religions to meet together to discuss what - if any - responsibility they felt they had for the natural environment as a "sacred" entity.
I don't claim to have any special interest in natural history, but as a boy I was made aware of the annual fluctuations in the number of game animals and the need to adjust the cull to the size of the surplus population.
It is an old cliche to say that the future is in the hands of the young. This is no longer true. The quality of life to be enjoyed or the existence to be survived by our children and future generations is in our hands now.
Books are certainly old fashioned, but only people with a very limited perception are silly enough to condemn ideas because of their age. It is, of course, equally silly to condemn the new fangled simply because it is strange.
A few years ago, everybody was saying we must have more leisure, everyone's working too much. Now everybody's got more leisure time they're complaining they're unemployed. People don't seem to make up their minds what they want.
We are suffering a national defeat comparable to any lost military campaign, and what is more, it is self- inflicted? It is about time that we pulled our fingers out? The rest of the world most certainly does not owe us a living.
In the days when the nation depended on agriculture for its wealth it made the Lord Chancellor sit on a woolsack to remind him where the wealth came from. I would like to suggest we remove that now and make him sit on a crate of machine tools.
The conservation of nature, the proper care for the human environment and a general concern for the long-term future of the whole of our planet are absolutely vital if future generations are to have a chance to enjoy their existence on this earth.
I am full of admiration for the technologists who have developed all sorts of gadgets for the purpose of improving communications. However, I believe that all these fascinating machines are complementary to, and not substitutes for, books and the printed word.
Occasionally I get fed up, going to visit a factory, when I am being shown around by the chairman, who clearly hasn't got a clue, and I try to get hold of the factory manager, but I can't because the chairman wants to make sure he's the one in all the photographs.
Human population growth is probably the single most serious long-term threat to survival. We're in for a major disaster if it isn't curbed...We have no option. If it isn't controlled voluntarily, it will be controlled involuntarily by an increase in disease, starvation and war.
It's no use saying do this, do that, don't do that ... it's very easy when children want something to say no immediately. I think it's quite important not to give an unequivocal answer at once. Much better to think it over. Then, if you eventually say no, I think they really accept it.
I just wonder what it would be like to be reincarnated in an animal whose species had been so reduced in numbers than it was in danger of extinction. What would be its feelings toward the human species whose population explosion had denied it somewhere to exist. I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.