“It seems to me self-evident that we cannot have capitalism without capital and, very importantly, that the ultimate source of all economic capital is Nature’s capital”

To avert disaster, we have not only to teach men to make things but to teach them to have complete moral control over what they make.

Forests are the world’s air-conditioning system-the lungs of the planet-and we are on the verge of switching it off.

All I’m saying is that there is a price to be paid at the sharp end environmentally and everywhere else for the food that is produced in a particular way.

My Rainforests Project has three main elements. Firstly, to determine how much funding the rainforest countries need to re-orientate their economies so that the trees are worth more alive than dead.

Your greatest achievement is to love me.

The whole imposing edifice of modern medicine is like the celebrated tower of Pisa – slightly off balance.

I think we need to recover the depth, the subtlety, the generosity of imagination, the respect for wisdom that so marked Islam in its great ages.

If your children want to alter society, listen to their reasons and the idealism behind them. Don’t crush them with some clever remark straight away.

To get the best results you must talk to your vegetables.

Humility is to make a right estimate of one’s self. It is no humility for a man to think less of himself than he ought, though it might rather puzzle him to do that.

Painting transports me into another dimension which, quite literally, refreshes parts of the soul which other activities can’t reach.

Fast food may appear to be cheap food and, in the literal sense it often is, but that is because huge social and environmental costs are being excluded from the calculations.

I believe passionately that everyone has a particular God-given ability.

We have spent the best part of the past century enthusiastically testing the world to utter destruction; not looking closely enough at the long-term impact our actions will have.

Hong Kong has created one of the most successful societies on Earth.

Something as curious as the monarchy won’t survive unless you take account of people’s attitudes. After all, if people don’t want it, they won’t have it.