Everyone is born into a certain era. I wouldn't want to see anyone faced with the circumstances that prevailed at the time, when there were few or no alternatives.
We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that the future consequences of current environmental issues are already measurable.
Gunter Grass highlights that the alarming statistics regarding pollution, overpopulation, and desertification serve as a clear indication of the future we are headed toward. By stating 'the future is already in place,' he points out the urgency of addressing these critical issues, which have already been set in motion by our present actions. It serves as a call to action to understand the implications of our current path and to make necessary changes to secure a sustainable future.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about climate change, to emphasize the urgency of addressing pollution.
More from Gunter Grass
All quotes βI wept when the muse Ulla bent over me. Blinded by tears I could not prevent her from kissing me, I could not prevent the Muse from giving me that terrible kiss. All of you who have ever been kissed by the Muse will surely understand that Oskar, once branded by that kiss, was condemned to take back the drum he had rejected years before, the drum he had buried in the sand of Sapse Cemetery.
Today I know that all things are watching, that nothing goes unseen, that even wallpaper has a better memory than human beings.
I did not volunteer for the Waffen SS, but was, as were thousands of my year group, conscripted. I did not then know as a 17-year-old that it was a criminal unit. I thought it was an elite unit.
Art is uncompromising, and life is full of compromises.
If work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this one utopian principle - absolute busyness - then utopia and melancholy will come to coincide: an age without conflict will dawn, perpetually busy - and without consciousness.
Similar quotes
As scientists, we step on the shoulders of science, building on the work that has come before us - aiming to inspire a new generation of young scientists to continue once we are gone.
The politicized sponsors of this pseudoscientific nonsense should be ashamed to live, let alone die. If you want to take part in the βwarβ against cancer, and other terrible maladies, too, then join the battle against their lethal stupidity.
The enemy of science is not religion... . The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma.
It is a right, yes a duty, to search in cautious manner for the numbers, sizes, and weights, the norms for everything [God] has created. For He himself has let man take part in the knowledge of these things ... For these secrets are not of the kind whose research should be forbidden; rather they are set before our eyes like a mirror so that by examining them we observe to some extent the goodness and wisdom of the Creator.
We and other groups are seeing clear statistical links between telomere shortness and risk for a variety of diseases that are becoming very common, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers.
In the fields I know best, among the life sciences, it is required that the most expert and sophisticated minds be capable of changing course - often with a great lurch - every few years.