While you cannot deliver policies without principles, you cannot deliver principles without having power. You have quickly to move to a stage where, emphasising your principles, you build a programme, then call for popular support.
Gordon BrownRead
Our mission is, in truth, historic and world changing - to build, over the next fifty years and beyond, a global low carbon economy. And it is not overdramatic to say that the character and course of the coming century will be set by how we measure up to this challenge
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of transitioning to a low carbon economy to impact future generations.
Gordon Brown highlights the urgent mission of creating a global low carbon economy as a transformative challenge for the world. He suggests that the actions taken in the next fifty years will significantly influence the character and trajectory of the upcoming century, making it imperative for society to rise to this ecological challenge without overstating its importance.
In practice
During a climate change conference, this quote can inspire policymakers to commit to a sustainable future.
While you cannot deliver policies without principles, you cannot deliver principles without having power. You have quickly to move to a stage where, emphasising your principles, you build a programme, then call for popular support.
No one should be held back from realising their potential by fears that they will not be able to afford to go to university or that they will graduate with unmanageable levels of debt.
To my astonishment, everything that I had assumed was now questioned by the findings. What started off as a search for identity that appeared to be purely Scottish in origin ended up as a discovery of my migrant roots - indeed an understanding that almost all of our families, at some stage, have been migrants - and my European roots.
Collective European Union action could mean no hiding places for evaders, no safe haven for tax avoiders, and no treasure islands for money launderers.
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.
I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it.
I'm only interested in people engaged in a project of self-transformation.
The western model of growth that India and China wish to emulate is intrinsically toxic. It uses huge resources - energy and materials - and generates enormous waste... it remains many steps behind the problems it creates. India and China have no choice but to reinvent the development trajectory
Surrender is the inner transition from resistance to acceptance, from no to yes.
Those who wish to change things may face disappointment, loss, or even ridicule. If you are ahead of your time, people laugh as often as they applaud, and being there first is usually lonely. But our protection cannot come between us and our purpose. Right protection is something within us rather than something between us and the world, more about finding a place of refuge and strength than finding a hiding place.
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