Alan Paton Quotes

Consumers want a better world, not just better widgets.

Customers want good value, but they care more than ever how food and clothing products are made.

Starbucks goes to a great effort, and pays twice as much for its coffee as its competitors do, and is very careful to help coffee producers in developing countries grow coffee without pesticides and in ways that preserve forest structure.

As consumers and as voters we can say 'no' to rogue economics and demand regulation.

We have to choose between a global market driven only by calculations of short-term profit, and one which has a human face.

Anyone who criticises me for talking about fair trade is a few pebbles short of a beach. Because everyone should care about it, just like everyone should care about the environment, because we all live here.

Buy your fair-trade coffee beans by all means, but don't assume fair-trade principles govern the conditions of the men who fetch it to you. You would be mistaken.

Capital is good; the capitalist is a helper if he is not also a monopolist. We can safely let any one get as rich as he can if he will not despoil others in doing so.

When I buy something from Raven & Lily, I know that it is good, it is not harming anything, and the people making it are being helped.

It's an old-fashioned, very outdated, non-functioning idea that we can drain all the resources from directly around us and skyrocket to the top of a skyscraper, and that's success. We have to understand that when one has to leech from others to that degree, then that's something we need to watch and stop.

I want to build businesses that are high quality, socially conscious, and for the people.

We've always believed in fair trade.

My whole shtick is that I want to contribute to New York's culture via restaurants, nightlife, whatever... but to be more conscious, more aware, more sustainable. It's more than just 'being responsible as a culture.' It's having an ethical chain of production.

Renounce all those material things that you gained by exploiting other human beings.

The scientific world, the materialistic world, the world of commerce, the world of business, the world of individualism, the world of capitalism, world of communism - all these worlds are the old story now. Where we think we exploit nature, we exploit people. Market rules, profit rules, money rules. We work for name, fame, power, money, profit. That's the old story.

Sustainability is another word for justice, for what is just is sustainable and what is unjust is not.

I feel terrible about corporate greed. Growing up in a household that was a little more humble and didn't put so much emphasis on money and material goods, I think I have a pretty good head on my shoulders.

In a world where profit is consistently put before both people and the planet, climate economics has everything to do with ethics and morality.

Every single social and global issue of our day is a business opportunity in disguise.

Without restoring an ethos of social responsibility, there can be no meaningful and sustained economic recovery.

How have we come to a place in society where millions of babies can be slaughtered and disposed of in the name of progress? Shocking but real.

What is a man if he is not a thief who openly charges as much as he can for the goods he sells?

If a man successful in business expends a part of his income in things of no real use, while the poor employed by him pass through difficulties in getting the necessaries of life, this requires his serious attention.

Early Charlie Munger is a horrible career model for the young, because not enough was delivered to civilization in return for what was wrested from capitalism. And other similar career models are even worse.

They're going to clear cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit unless you learn to resist, because the profit system follows the path of least resistance and following the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked!