Patch Adams Quotes

Why do we have 47 million people without health care? Because America has become about 'me'. What's happened to 'we' as a people? I believe in that and that resonates to most people.

If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed and if we are not willing to change, we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect.

If the amount of money going into the war economy were invested in landscape restoration, we would be in a far more positive position. It may get a little dire before we pull together, but I think when the prosperous nations, and in particular the U.S., realize they're wrecking their own kids' lives, there will be a mass change in value.

I have often spoken about the importance of intentionality in philanthropy: that it has to stir the soul. This is true whether you are feeding the homeless, mentoring a child or working on climate change.

I talk to fashion designers and say I want some money to save the rainforest, and they say, 'Oh, I agree with you completely Vivienne. Yes, climate change, it's definitely happening,' but they don't feel that they can do anything about it; they don't even think 'Well let's stop it!'

The money I earn from films means I can help the people I want to help - you can do a lot of good if you want to.

I always say, 'People first, then money, then things.'

Both EarthEcho and Seventh Generation understand that young people have the power to change the world - one home, one school and one community at a time.

I have enjoyed the personal use of money; but I have gotten the greatest satisfaction from using it to advance my beliefs in human relations, human values.

Saving lives is not a top priority in the halls of power. Being compassionate and concerned about human life can cause a man to lose his job. It can cause a woman not to get the job to begin with.

This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.

I think people like Bill Gates, who have given away enormous sums of money, are shining examples for all of us to follow.

Civilization has given us enormous successes: going to the moon, technology. But then this is the civilisation that took us to debt, environmental crisis, every single crisis. We need a civilization where we say goodbye to these things.

I admire people like Warren Buffett that are donating so much money to charity.

If the money we donate helps one child or can ease the pain of one parent, those funds are well spent.

The goal isn't how much money you make, but how much you help people.

Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

I've spent so much time with my dad traveling and seeing the ground-level change that we've been able to make through philanthropy and trip over trip, time over time, country over country, home after home we've been invited into, given tea, given food that people didn't have to give us, I mean all of these things.

The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help. All therefore that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-men; and no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt.

I imagine an America that can actually change. That we become a nation that prospers again but without pillaging the resources of nations that make their people hate us. That we become a nation that, as the constitution says in its preamble, its very first paragraph, 'promotes the general welfare' of its people.

People first, then money, then things.

When people said Africa would change me, I didn't understand what they meant. To see the poverty in the townships, for instance, is overwhelming. I found it heart-wrenching to see young children walking barefoot and hungry in the dirt. I'm the kind of person who wants to change the world right here and now, so I got frustrated.

He is the richest man who enriches his country most; in whom the people feel richest and proudest; who gives himself with his money; who opens the doors of opportunity widest to those about him; who is ears to the deaf, eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame.

The difference between what all the people can do individually and the global consumption of nonrenewable resources is huge. The tension is... what will it take to get people to act in concert? There isn't any additive solution to the problem. It will be both governmental and social because that's the scale of the problem.

When the world decides to stop being greedy... there will be a harvest for the world! Amen.