Fear can indeed be the beginning of wisdom.
BARBARA WARDFear can indeed be the beginning of wisdom.
BARBARA WARDIt is a truism that one person who wants something is a hundred times stronger than a hundred who want to be left alone.
BARBARA WARDIf a man has lived in a tradition which tells him that nothing can be done about his human condition, to believe that progress is possible may well be the greatest revolution of all.
BARBARA WARDTo act without rapacity, to use knowledge with wisdom, to respect interdependence, to operate without hubris and greed are not simply moral imperatives. They are an accurate scientific description of the means of survival.
BARBARA WARDthe wealthy white western minority of the world could not hope to prosper if most of the rest of mankind were foundering in hopeless poverty. Islands of plenty in a vast ocean of misery never have been a good recipe for commercial success.
BARBARA WARDthe distinction between rich nations and poor nations is one of the great dominant political and international themes of our century.
BARBARA WARDman’s oldest and least reputable occupation – war.
BARBARA WARDOur physical unity has gone far ahead of our moral unity.
BARBARA WARDin modern society, fear of unemployment remains the darkest of the shadows thrown by the past. In an industrial order, a man out of work is almost a man out of life.
BARBARA WARDJews were the first to believe that history itself has meaning and that progress, not repetition, is the law of life.
BARBARA WARDEvery single ancient wisdom and religion will tell you the same thing – don’t live entirely for yourself, live for other people. Don’t get stuck inside your own ego, because it will become a prison in no time flat.
BARBARA WARDThe raw material from which social institutions are fashioned is always more or less recalcitrant and any human society will tend to produce a caricature of itself.
BARBARA WARDWe cannot cheat on DNA. We cannot get round photosynthesis. We cannot say I am not going to give a damn about phytoplankton. All these tiny mechanisms provide the preconditions of our planetary life. To say we do not care is to say in the most literal sense that “we choose death.”
BARBARA WARDThe modern world is not given to uncritical admiration. It expects its idols to have feet of clay and can be reasonably sure that the press and camera will report their exact dimensions.
BARBARA WARDIt is very much easier for a rich man to invest and grow richer than for the poor man to begin investing at all. And this is also true of nations.
BARBARA WARDFaith will not be restored in the West because people believe it to be useful. It will return only when they find that it is true.
BARBARA WARD