Money isn't automatically freedom. You need to look carefully at what you're doing to earn the money before you can conclude that you are, in practice, free. This is a cost-benefit analysis we should all perform on our own lives.
John LanchesterRead
Nobody in the developing world is going to take, as an answer to their aspirations, the developed world's reply: 'Sorry, you can't; we've already used it all up.' To earn the right to look the developing world in the eye and start this conversation, we need a reassessment of how we live and what we want.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We must reconsider our lifestyles and aspirations to engage meaningfully with the developing world.
This quote emphasizes the moral and ethical responsibility of the developed world towards the developing nations. John Lanchester suggests that it is unjust for those who have already consumed resources to deny aspiring individuals from developing countries the same opportunities, underscoring the need for a critical reassessment of our values and actions to have a genuine conversation about equity and aspirations.
Themes
Developing WorldResourcesResponsibilityAspirationsSustainability
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech addressing climate change, one might quote this to highlight the need for equitable resource distribution.
More from John Lanchester
All quotes →One of the things I have noticed about my novels is that they all concern people who can't quite bring themselves to tell the truth about their own lives... I've come to realise that this interest in damaged, untellable stories comes from my parents.
John LanchesterRead
Rising inequality is not a law of nature - it's not even a law of economics. It is a consequence of political and economic arrangements, and those arrangements can be changed.
John LanchesterRead
The financial system in its current condition poses an existential threat to Western democracy far exceeding any terrorist threat.
John LanchesterRead
The person doing the worrying experiences it as a form of love; the person being worried about experiences it as a form of control.
John LanchesterRead
Similar quotes
The highest point of philosophy is to be both wise and simple; this is the angelic life.
John ChrysostomRead
Well now everything dies baby that's a fact_x000D_ But maybe everything that dies someday comes back.
Bruce SpringsteenRead
No voice comes from outer space, from the folds of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew how long the ruins would last we would never complain.
Mark StrandRead
It's difficult to believe in yourself because the idea of self is an artificial construction. You are, in fact, part of the glorious oneness of the universe. Everything beautiful in the world is within you.
Russell BrandRead
Tout est poison, rien n'est poison, tout est une question de dose. Everything is poisonous, nothing is poisonous, it is all a matter of dose.
Claude BernardRead
I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.
Mustafa Kemal AtaturkRead