Quote

It is from the Himalayan forests and ecosystems that I learned most of what I know about ecology.

Vandana Shiva

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Vandana Shiva
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: November 5
Author
Environmentalist
Philosopher
Politician
University Teacher
Writer
Dehra Dun
Forests
Learned
Needs
Himalayan
Ecosystems
Ecology

More quotes by Vandana Shiva

Image
I didn't leave physics because of boredom. I left it because other issues compelled me in a bigger way. And I always say to myself, When I'm 60, I'd like to go back to what I interrupted.
Vandana Shiva
Image
I started out in nuclear physics. But after I became more sensitized to the environmental and health implications of the nuclear system - I was being trained to be the first women in the fast-breeder reactor in India (and was in it when it first went critical) - I didn't feel comfortable with it. So I went into theoretical physics.
Vandana Shiva
Image
When I find too many puzzles about the way explanations are given about why there is inequality - why people who work the hardest in the world end up being the poorest - I can't just sit back and not try to understand why the gaps between people are increasing, or why there are so many homeless and hungry people in the world.
Vandana Shiva
Image
The idea of engineering is an idea of mastery. And today the role that we are being asked to play is a role based on informed humanity.
Vandana Shiva
Image
If you see cattle as a source of organic manure, animal energy, as well as milk products, then Indian cattle are not inferior. It is only when you measure them as milk machines that they become inferior. What if we measured the dairy cows of America or Jersey or the Swiss Alps in terms of their work functions? They would be terribly inferior.
Vandana Shiva
Image
The agrarian crisis [in India] is an unnecessary tragedy, resulting directly from an economics of greed and a politics driven by the economies of greed.
Vandana Shiva
Image
The environmental movement can only survive if it becomes a justice movement. As a pure environmental movement, it will either die, or it will survive as a corporate 'greenwash'. Anyone who's a sincere environmentalist can't stand that role.
Vandana Shiva
Image
I like to live my life so that my loved ones give me the things I need as gifts and I give them the things they need. Frankly a society built around consumerism is hell
Vandana Shiva
Image
The system of seeds based on monoculture is wrong and inappropriate. The biodiverse system has produced more food, and biodiversity means that seeds must be in the hands of farmers.
Vandana Shiva
Image
Gandhi’s idea of swadeshi—that local societies should put their own resources and capacities to use to meet their needs as a basic element of freedom—is becoming increasingly relevant. We cannot afford to forget that we need self-rule, especially in this world of globalization.
Vandana Shiva
Image
I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness, no matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that itself creates new potential.
Vandana Shiva
Image
Seed is not just the source of life. It is the very foundation of our being.
Vandana Shiva
Image
A single, one-dimensional way of thinking has created a monoculture of the mind. And the monoculture of the mind has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is the root of why we have pitted equity against ecology and sustainability against justice.
Vandana Shiva
Image
Soil, not oil, holds the future for humanity.
Vandana Shiva
Image
That amazing power of being able to stand with total courage in the face of total power and not be afraid. That is stri shakti.
Vandana Shiva
Image
Something is very, very wrong when people don’t have access to drinking water, and Coke creates its market out of that scarcity.
Vandana Shiva
Image
As usual, in every scheme that worsens the position of the poor, it is the poor who are invoked as beneficiaries.
Vandana Shiva
Image
I do have fun. Even when I’m fighting I’m enjoying it: I think there’s nothing as exhilarating as protecting that which you find precious.
Vandana Shiva
Image
Whenever we engage in consumption or production patterns which take more than we need, we are engaging in violence.
Vandana Shiva
Image
The primary threat to nature and people today comes from centralising and monopolising power and control. Not until diversity is made the logic of production will there be a chance for sustainability, justice and peace. Cultivating and conserving diversity is no luxury in our times: it is a survival imperative.
Vandana Shiva