Finite Resources Quotes & Sayings

Growing old is natural," growls the old woman. "When you've lived long enough for all your ambitions to be in ruins, friendships broken, lovers forgotten or divorced acrimoniously, what's left to go on for? If you feel tired and old in spirit, you might as well be tired and old in body. Anyway, wanting to live forever is immoral. Think of all the resources you're taking up that younger people need! Even uploads face a finite data storage limit after a time. It's a monstrously egotistical statement, to say you intend to live forever. And if there's one thing I believe in, it's public service. Duty: the obligation to make way for the new. Duty and control. — Charles Stross

Our resources may be finite, but our will is infinite, and I am confident that if we come together and summon that great American spirit once again, we will meet the challenges of our time and write the next great chapter in our American story. — Barack Obama

Unfortunately, in rich-world health, innovation is both your friend and your enemy. Innovation is inventing organ replacement, joint replacement. We're inventing ways of doing new things that cost $300,000 and take people in their 70s and, on average, give them an extra, say, two or three years of life. And then you have to say, given finite resources, should we fire two or three teachers to do this operation? — Bill Gates

The paradox of life lies exactly in this: its resources are finite, but it itself is endless. Such a contradictory state of affairs is feasible only because the resources accessible to life can be used over and over again. — I.I. Gitelson

Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth on a planet with finite resources is either a madman or an economist. — David Attenborough

The term 'natural resources' confuses people. 'Natural resources' are not like a finite number of gifts under the Christmas tree. Nature is given, but resources are created. — Alex Tabarrok

Whether the result of wear, tear, and exhaustion of resources or whether genetically programmed, all life has a finite span and each species has its own particular longevity. For human beings, this would appear to be approximately 100 to 110 years. This means that even were it possible to prevent or cure every disease that carries people off before the ravages of senescence do, virtually no one would live beyond a century or a bit more. — Sherwin B. Nuland

More than a billion women around the world want to emulate western women's lifestyles and are rapidly acquiring the material ability to do so. It is therefore vital that in our leadership we display some reserve and responsibility in our spending so that the world's finite resources will be available for our children, their children and their children's children — Louise Burfitt-Dons

We used to live in a world where the price of resources came down steadily, and now the world has changed. You have a great mismatch between finite resources and exponential population growth. — Jeremy Grantham

There's this very vulnerable planet of ours with finite resources. Architects and designers have, I think, a fair responsibility for conserving energy and materials, and making things durable. — Robin Day

There is no single theory that is used in economics that considers the finite nature of resources. It's shocking. — Jeremy Grantham

You remember those twin statues of the Buddha that I told you about? Carved out of a mountain in Afghanistan, that got dynamited by the Taliban back in the spring? Notice anything familiar?"
"Twin Buddhas, twin towers, interesting coincidence, so what."
"The Trade Center towers were religious too. They stood for what this country worships above everything else, the market, always the holy fucking market."
"A religious beef, you're saying?"
"It's not a religion? These are people who believe the Invisible Hand of the Market runs everything. They fight holy wars against competing religions like Marxism. Against all evidence that the world is finite, this blind faith that resources will never run out, profits will go on increasing forever, just like the world's populations
more cheap labor, more addicted consumers. — Thomas Pynchon

Days are a finite resource and it's best to protect the ones you have. — Catherine Lacey

The world as it is perceived by most people, is a world of finite resources. — Marianne Williamson

Spiraling demand for resources of which our world contains a finite supply is the great long-term threat posed by globalisation. That is why we need new technology to relieve it. — Peter Thiel

But as someone pointed out earlier, it is not really about fairness; it is about taking finite resources and applying them where they will have the most effect. — Jim Walsh

Because our brain's resources are limited, we are left with a choice: to use those finite resources to see only pain, negativity, stress, and uncertainty, or to use those resources to look at things through a lens of gratitude, hope, resilience, optimism, and meaning. — Shawn Achor

Not to mention the fact that the belief in conspiracy theories is already a form of conspiracy theory in itself. It's to me not quite clear on what basis you would assume that one conspiracy is no conspiracy, and the others are. Capitalism drives on conspiracy theories as well: they believe in a certain power that creates a "free market" and that you can sit and grow forever on finite resources. This newspaper article obviously did not mean 'conspiracy theory' but 'urban legend', because the question if there are ufos landing on earth and whether you want to believe this seems to have little to do with conspiracy. And whether that is an urban legend worthy of belief is not undisputed. I think people who believe in such things are actually less illogical than people who believe housing associations are useful. — Martijn Benders

Our most serious problem, perhaps, is that we have become a nation of fantasists. We believe, apparently, in the infinite availability of finite resources. — Wendell Berry

Once humans traded their hunter-gatherer existences for more settled communities, we began a quest to make our lives better and more comfortable, but we've also been sucking precious finite resources from our environment ever since. — Naveen Jain

On my 70th birthday, I was asked how I felt about mankind's prospects. This is my reply: We are behaving like yeasts in a brewer's vat, multiplying mindlessly while greedily consuming the substance of a finite world. If we continue to imitate the yeasts, we will perish as they perish, having exhausted our resources and poisoned ourselves in the lethal brew of our own wastes. Unlike the yeasts, we have a choice. What will it be? — Farley Mowat

Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. — Stephen Hawking

The wasting of finite resources is everyones business — Stephenie Meyer

Driven living makes us the center of our well-planned schedules. It may stem from a passion to live with eternal purpose, but it signifies that we believe God's work depends on us and neglects to acknowledge that God created us as finite resources dependent upon Him. — Paul Chappell

Your talent and abilities are limited resources. Your time is finite. If you don't make your life about what you say yes to, then it will almost certainly become what you intended to say no to. — Gary Keller

We have just enough time and money to compare ourselves to others who have more time and money, and we think we should be able to accomplish everything they do and have, without being able to see the sacrifices others have made to have the things they do. We grew up learning we could do anything we put our minds to, but the reality is that you just can't have it all. So when we fail to live up to our own expectations, we think it is because of a problem within us instead of recognizing the very real limitations that come with having finite resources of time, money, and talent. — Jessica N. Turner

Since human needs are finite, but human greed is not, economic growth can usually be maintained through artificial creation of needs by means of advertising. The goods that are produced and sold in this way are often unneeded, and thus are essentially waste. The pollution and depletion of natural resources generated by this enormous waste of unnecessary goods is exacerbated by the waste of energy and materials in inefficient production processes. Indeed, as we discuss in Chapter 17, the — Fritjof Capra

Any system of ethics must account for scarcity. If it doesn't, humanity would perish due to misallocation of finite resources, including one's own body. — Daniel Alexander Brackins

The first rule of economics is that there is an infinite number of desires chasing a finite number of goods, services and resources. The first rule of politics is to ignore the first rule of economics. — Thomas Sowell

Our supplies of natural resources are not finite in any economic sense. Nor does past experience give reason to expect natural resources to become more scarce. Rather, if history is any guide, natural resources will progressively become less costly, hence less scarce, and will constitute a smaller proportion of our expenses in future years. — Julian Simon

Just as fossil fuels from conventional sources are finite and are becoming depleted, those from difficult sources will also run out. If we put all our energy and resources into continued fossil fuel extraction, we will have lost an opportunity to have invested in renewable energy. — David Suzuki

Growth has failed on its own terms. You can't have infinite growth in a world of finite resources. — Andrew Simms

And that, quite simply, is the issue. We live in a finite world with finite resources. Although it may sometimes seem quite big, earth is really very small - a tiny blue and green oasis of life in a cold universe. — David Suzuki

Maybe the yogi is a parent who's a little more patient with their child, or a more compassionate coworker, or an understanding boss. Perhaps, they pick up a piece of trash that wasn't theirs, turn off a light when they're not in the room, or turn off the water while they brush their teeth, sensitive to the finite nature of our worldly resources. When we become mindful this way, there's a ripple effect. We inspire others to do the same. — David F. Swensen

Someone in the society has to deal with the reality that there are finite resources and we're Making trade-offs, and be explicit about that. When the car companies were found to have a memo that actually said, "This safety feature costs X and saved Y lives," the very existence of that memo was considered damning. Or when you made it reimbursable for a doctor to ask, "Do you want heroic care at the end-of-life," that was a death panel. No, it wasn't a death panel! It was asking somebody to make a decision. — Bill Gates

There are three reasons, ... apart from scientific considerations, mankind needs to travel in space. The first ... is garbage disposal; we need to transfer industrial processes into space so that the earth may remain a green and pleasant place for our grandchildren to live in. The second ... to escape material impoverishment: the resources of this planet are finite, and we shall not forego forever the abundance of solar energy and minerals and living space that are spread out all around us. The third ... our spiritual need for an open frontier. — Freeman Dyson

Energy and time are finite resources; conserving them is very important. — Twyla Tharp

An environment of infinite economic expansion is unsustainable in a world of finite resources. — Bryant McGill

The bigger question is how does a rogue species called humans - whose population just blew through the seven billion mark on it's way to nine billion members - manage to survive the next century on a planet with finite resources, without destroying its delicate balance in the process. — Edward Burtynsky

For too long we have tried to consume our
way to prosperity. Look at the cost: polluted
lands and oceans, climate change, growing
scarcity of resources from food to land to fresh
water, rampant inequality. We need to invent a
new model; a model that offers growth and social inclusion ... that is more respectful of the
planet's finite resources. Nature has been kind
to human beings, but we have not been kind to
nature. — Ban Ki-moon

We live on a finite planet. We have finite resources, and we're running out of good, arable land. — Jeremy Grantham

Scientifically, happiness is a choice. It is a choice about where your single processor brain will devote its finite resources as you process the world. — Shawn Achor

If we have any hope of finding ways for seven billion people to live well on planet with finite resources, we have to learn to use our resources efficiently. Plastic bags are neither efficient nor environmentally friendly. — David Suzuki

Because infinite growth is impossible with finite resources. Any new corporate model needs to take that into account. Phillip Percival, consultant/director, IC Science — Anonymous

What will use more finite resources? That 3rd or 4th child you have or driving a large car? We all need to think about the choices we make — Phil Harding

It didn't matter who liked whom, or on what side a man might find himself, because they were all on the side of a world of very definite finite resources, and they would all suffer terrifying consequences if they drained to bare bones the world that had conceived the life of the human race, fostered and nurtured that life, which now threatened to contaminate and destroy - — Alan Shepard