Richard Branson Quotes
We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment. We must hand it over to our children in as near pristine condition as we were lent it from our parents.
Richard Branson, English entrepreneur, Press Statement, September 21 2006
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Preserving the environment in a modern state involves restrictions of various kinds ranging from limits on land use to prohibiting of hunting of endangered species. Each of these limits individual freedom somewhat. This is the main reason that there is a significant anti-environmentalism movement. Most laws and regulations restrict human freedom somewhat, and generally democratic societies limit these to the very necessary. But with environmentalism, more regulation is usually better environmentalism. Therefore such regulation is always a trade off with some human freedom.
This statement of the problem was so eloquent and universal that it is even used a century later. For example it was quoted by James Inhofe, on his Senate Speech, October 4, 2004.
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, investor, and author. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields.