“We’ve been in lots of places that I suppose, by Oxford standards, would be considered illiterate, but everyone’s completely conversant with the idea that here is a number, and that number is above it, and that’s too high. It’s not a very complicated idea.”

The purpose of meditation is to awaken in us the sky-like nature of mind, and to introduce us to that which we really are, our unchanging pure awareness, which underlies the whole of life and death

I like the moment when I break a man’s ego.

Oil companies are radical because they’re willing to alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere.

In the last two years 24 countries have set new all-time temperature records. We’ve seen flooding on an epic scale in every continent .

We have much more in common with other people than we have apart.

I’m a statistic in a system that a civil servant dominates.

What would be better for us to believe!’ This sounds very like a definition of truth

We also have to engage – and I think this is important – in national politics because there is no way to address questions of this scale in the short time that we have to address them without engaging in real political change.

Climate change is a huge problem, an almost insoluble problem.

We have to transition to new technologies, making it more expensive to continue with the old and polluting technologies and cheaper to go to the clean ones.

There is an urgent need to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, dramatically reduce wasted energy, and significantly shift our power supplies from oil, coal, and natural gas to wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources.

If it’s wrong to wreck the planet, it’s wrong to profit from the wreckage.

If the Holy Spirit is capable of the heavy lifting required to get Pat Robertson to change his mind, then that strikes me as a very good sign.

Where people aren’t as deeply reliant on fossil fuel as in the United States, it’s far easier for them to imagine change on this scale. When you go to Europe, they’re much more ready. They use half the amount of energy per capita that we use. They can imagine using less than that. They see the benefits. They’re ready to go.

If we continue to think of ourselves mostly as consumers, it’s going to be very hard to bring our environmental troubles under control. But it’s also going to be very hard to live the rounded and joyful lives that could be ours. This is a subversive volume in all the best ways!

We’re going to need that kind of movement, because the fossil fuel industry is a sprawling adversary – at work everywhere, its tentacles in everybody’s politics, invulnerable, I think, to direct frontal assault, but probably more brittle than it guesses if we come at it from all sides.

The trouble with being number one in the world – in anything- is that it takes a certain mentality to attain that position, and that is something of a driving, perfectionist attitude, so that once you do achieve number one, you don’t relax and enjoy it.

Everyone, no matter what their marital circumstance or number of children, can be defenders of the Lord’s plan described in the family proclamation. If it is the Lord’s plan, it should also be our plan!

Squaring numbers are just like women. If they’re under thirteen, just do them in your head.

The cool part about naming your kid is you don’t have to add six numbers to make sure the name is available.

[John Howard] led the Government. They had the numbers, and just basically automatically went along with the Americans.

I think there are a number of reasons, not least of which is the personality of the Queen [ Elizabeth II]. It’s very easy to underrate her significance.

Large numbers of people are broken from the notion that the system is working for people, that the system is just or humane or peaceful.

We worry about the seemingly ever-increasing number of natural catastrophes. Yet this is mainly a consequence of CNN.