“Years ago I resolved that because I had no ancestry myself I would leave a record of which my children would be proud, and which might encourage them to still higher effort”

We are all born bonded to nature; that’s why we put depictions of flowers and forests, rather than bulldozers or log piles, on our walls.

I will be Green until the day I die, if not for a long time after.

Humans are mentally sick with a disease called fear.

With a small fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the Iraq war, the US and Australia could ensure every starving, sunken-eyed child on the planet could be well fed, have clean water and sanitation and a local school to go to.

Australia must prioritise education spending. It is not a question of whether or not we have the money, it is a question of how we choose to spend it.

Never want something without expecting it

In the end, climate change is a math problem.

Whereas our common past, out of Africa, saw a global diaspora of humankind, our common future depends on a global coming together and consensus, resulting in a more equitable distribution of the Earth’s largesse.

In securing the future of the planet, we secure happiness for ourselves. One of the aims of the Greens is to turn around the tide of pessimism amongst the young people of the world.

I think I could have been quite difficult to fathom as a youngster, this kid who didn’t talk about himself very much.

Wilderness has become one of the world’s fastest disappearing resources, and it is non-renewable.

I am aware that one should always make room for renewal in politics. A democracy is the healthier for the turnover of the depth of talent there is in its community.

Yet unlike oil, gold or woodchips, it is essential to the wellbeing of humanity. We are made of it and fashioned by it…our psychological beings resonate with it.

We must have an expansionary vision, one that captures the imagination and diversity of the whole community, one which benefits a nation which has moved beyond the basics of literacy and numeracy and which wants to develop a learning culture.

I have seen such an immense change from the total repression and criminality of homosexuality in my lifetime. It does make me much more buoyant and optimistic about the future. If that change can occur in that time there’s hope for many other changes.

For comprehensive Earth action, an all-of-the-Earth representative democracy is required. That is, a global parliament.

It is the highest of earthly honors to be descended from the great and good. They alone cry out against a noble ancestry who have none of their own.

I didn’t know much about my Native American ancestry, but as I got older I became more interested in it.