In the future, human rights will be increasingly a universal criterion for designing ethical systems.
-- Mahnaz Afkhami

* In this society the young people from the cities and from the countryside, professionals or not, often unemployed, have all means to join and reinforce our efforts to raise the brave torch of Human Rights that illuminates the way in which the future of us all is decided.
-- Martin Almada

* "We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate --- thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising."
-- Maya Angelou

The future of peace and prosperity that we seek for all the world's peoples needs a foundation of tolerance, security, equality and justice.
-– Kofi Annan

The global work of the United Nations is not without reason compared to that of a family -- striving for a common goal in concert with all members for a better future.
-– Kofi Annan

* There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.
-- James A. Baldwin

We are committed with our lives to building a different model and a different future for humanity, the Earth, and other species. We have envisaged a moral alternative to economic globalization and we will not rest until we see it realized.
-- Maude Barlow

* "These children and their parents know that getting an education is not only their right, but a passport to a better future - for the children and for the country."
-- Harry Belafonte

We are not lacking in the dynamic forces needed to create the future. We live immersed in a sea of energy beyond all comprehension.
~ Thomas Berry

* When the story of these times gets written, we want it to say that we did all we could, and it was more than anyone could have imagined.
-- Bono

We are working towards a shared vision of the future for health among all the world's people. A vision future in which we develop new ways of working together at global and national level. A vision which has poor people and poor communities at its centre. And a vision which focuses action on the causes and consequences of the health conditions that create and perpetuate poverty.
-- Gro Brundtland

One faces the future with one's past.
-- Pearl S. Buck

Let us continue to strive together for a more inclusive, democratic, and peaceful future for us all.
-- Fernando Cardoso

* Acknowledging the physical realities of our planet does not mean a dismal future of endless sacrifice. In fact, acknowledging these realities is the first step in dealing with them. We can meet the resource problems of the world -- water, food, minerals, farmlands, forests, overpopulation, pollution -- if we tackle them with courage and foresight.
~ Jimmy Carter

* How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because some day in life you will have been all of these.
~ George Washington Carver

* To the wrongs that need resistance, To the right that needs assistance, To the future in the distance, Give yourselves.
-- Carrie Chapman Catt

* all of us should be involved in our own futures to create a world that our children will want to live in.
-- Harry Chapin

* “There is nothing more precious to a parent than a child, and nothing more important to our future than the safety of all our children.”
~ Bill Clinton

We cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs.
~ Bill Clinton

* The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it.
-- Bill Cosby

The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now.
-- Bill Cosby

* "Is it too late to prevent us from self-destructing? No, for we have the capacity to design our own future, to take a lesson from living things around us and bring our values and actions in line with ecological necessity. But we must first realize that ecological and social and economic issues are all deeply intertwined. There can be no solution to one without a solution to the others."
~ Jean-Michel Cousteau

It seems to rise again when the crisis times come, and this is a time of most severe crisis, as we all know, not just for the history of the United States and the survival indeed of our democracy, but for the future peace of the world. And never before probably has the need for interfaith commitment been nearly as great as it is at this very moment.
-- Walter Cronkite

* "UNICEF is helping mothers realize their dreams for the future — a future in which the basic needs for a child’s survival: food, clean water and simple health care — are guaranteed."
-- Jane Curtin

"...we all have an obligation as citizens of this earth to leave the world a healthier, cleaner, and better place for our children and future generations.”
~ Blythe Danner

* "No one person has to do it all but if each one of us follow our heart and our own inclinations we will find the small things that we can do to create a sustainable future and a healthy environment."
~ John Denver

* We live in a complex world and the motivation to use violence to solve problems needs to be seriously questioned. It is essential that we help our children perceive peaceful alternatives. We need to use these troubled times as an opportunity to create a new vision for the future.
-- Naomi Drew

* The only way children can learn the habit of forgiveness is by seeing us, their parents, forgive others and forgive ourselves.
-- Naomi Drew

* The best way to predict the future is to create it. -- Peter F. Drucker

* Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work. -- Peter F. Drucker

The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.
-- Peter F. Drucker

Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window. -- Peter F. Drucker

Long range planning does not deal with future decisions, but with the future of present decisions. -- Peter F. Drucker

* “Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.”
-- W. E. B. DuBois

I don't think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change.
-- Bob Dylan

* I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
-- Albert Einstein

* Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.
--Albert Einstein

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
-- Albert Einstein

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

* Change happens at the level of the individual
-- Scilla Elworthy

* Real change comes when people are enabled to use their thinking and their energy in a new way, using a different system of thought, different language, and having fresh visions of the future.
-- Scilla Elworthy

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

* "If you can intervene early in the lives of girls here and in other parts of the world, you can begin to change the prospects for the future."
-- Jane Fonda

* "When we protect the places where the processes of life can flourish, we strengthen not only the future of medicine, agriculture and industry, but also the essential conditions for peace and prosperity."
~ Harrison Ford

* The future depends on what we do in the present.
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi

I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present.
-- Mohandas Gandhi

* Everywhere we turn, we see violence and hate and prejudice and anger and all of these negative emotions that are destroying humanity. And we have to wake up and take note of this and try to change our course, so that we can create a world of peace and harmony where future generations can live happily together.
-- Arun Gandhi

Our society is only as healthy as our most vulnerable citizens. It is unconscionable that the weakest links in our country are our hungry children. No other Western industrialized nation has widespread hunger within its borders. We really must put an end to hunger in the United States if we are to keep our prosperity and protect the future.
-- Linda Gray

Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose.
-- Herbie Hancock

* Working for peace in the future is to work for peace in the present moment.
-- Thich Nhat Hanh

Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.
-- Thich Nhat Hanh

I would like to appeal to all those in whose hands the future of mankind lies, to use their power not to destroy or kill, nor to create suffering in a grasping search for selfish objectives, but to help alleviate the plight of the needy; to aim at justice and freedom for the individual.
-- Poul Hartling

* "The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is compassionate, prosperous, and enduring, and thus more intelligent, even competitive."
~ Paul Hawken

Pick the day. Enjoy it - to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come... The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present - and I don't want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future.
-- Audrey Hepburn

Once again a new world view is arising ... This idea is the culmination of all human history. It holds the promise of fulfilling the great aspirations of the past and heralds the advent of the next phase of our evolution. It is the idea of conscious evolution."
-- Barbara Marx Hubbard

In the past our glorious visions of the future - heaven, paradise, nirvana - were thought to happen after death. The newer thought is that we do not have to die to get there. We are not speaking here of life after death in some mythical heaven, but life more abundant in real time in history. We are speaking of the next stage of our social evolution.
-- Barbara Marx Hubbard

* "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
~ Thomas Jefferson

* I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
~ Thomas Jefferson

* Come, then, let us go forward together with our united strength - and win a better future for generations to come.
-- Van Jones

We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done.
-- Barbara Jordan

Once I knew only darkness and stillness... my life was without past or future... but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living. Helen Keller
-- Helen Keller

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. -- John F. Kennedy

The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men.
-- John F. Kennedy

I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. -- John F. Kennedy

* As citizen-activists the world over merge, they can become an irresistible force to create peace and protect the planet. From here will come a new movement to abolish nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction. From here will come the demand for sustainable communities, for new systems of energy, transportation and commerce. From here comes the future rushing in on us. How does one acquire the capacity for active citizenship? The opportunities exist every day...Active citizenship begins with an envisioning of the desired outcome and a conscious application of spiritual principles.
-- Dennis Kucinich

* "We're not locked in to these conditions that degrade the environment, and jeopardize the future of our children."
-- Dennis Kucinich

* The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.
-- Abraham Lincoln

* "I fear the future I wish for my children is at risk, so I'm taking action. Please join me... "
-- Madonna

* "If we want to reap the harvest of peace and justice in the future, we will have to sow seeds of nonviolence, here and now, in the present."
-- Mairead Corrigan Maguire

I believe that hope for the future depends on each of us taking nonviolence into our hearts and minds and developing new and imaginative structures which are nonviolent and life-giving for all.
-- Mairead Corrigan Maguire

* I think the most important issue we have as a people is what we started, and that is to begin to trust our own thinking again and belive in ourselves enough to think that we can articulate our own vision of the future and then work to make sure that that vision becomes a reality.
-- Wilma Mankiller

* “I don't think anybody anywhere can talk about the future of their people or of an organization without talking about education. Whoever controls the education of our children controls our future.”
-- Wilma Mankiller

* Tell the people of all lands
Let's get together the future is in our hands.
United nations have to agree
To say no to war, and yes to peace.
-- Country Joe McDonald

* 'As fathers, we know what a force for life children can be. They represent all of our futures.
-- Ewan McGregor

* "The solution of adult problems tomorrow depends in large measure upon the way our children grow up today. There is no greater insight into the future than recognizing that, when we save children, we save ourselves."
-- Margaret Mead

We are living beyond our means. As a people we have developed a life-style that is draining the earth of its priceless and irreplaceable resources without regard for the future of our children and people all around the world.
-- Margaret Mead

* Within the child lies the fate of the future.
-– Maria Montessori

* "I always try to see things with children's eyes. Are they happy? Sad? What do they need? Everywhere I went, I realized that children are society's victims … We have a duty to speak to political leaders, to influence people to give these children a better future."
-- Nana Mouskouri

On every front there are clear answers out there that can make this country stronger, but we're going to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling. Our job is to make sure that even as we make progress, that we are also giving people a sense of hope and vision for the future. -- Barack Obama

* We must come to terms with our responsibility to be the gatekeepers to end childhood hunger. Our love for life can propel us to share and provide a secure future for the children of our country.
-- Edward James Olmos, actor

* Race is the great taboo in our society. We are afraid to talk about it. White folks fear their unspoken views will be deemed racist. People of color are filled with sorrow and rage at unrighted wrongs. Drowning in silence, we are brothers and sisters drowning each other. Once we decide to transform ourselves from fearful caterpillars into courageous butterflies, we will be able to bridge the racial gulf and move forward together towards a bright and colorful future.
-- Eva Paterson

* Together we can prevent genocide from happening again. Together we can make a better future for our children. -- Dith Pran

"We are moved to deep humility by the knowledge that even as we are blazing new trails into an as yet uncharted future, we are following in the footsteps of a vast legacy of spiritual leaders and social change makers. The struggle for justice is as old as tyranny itself, and the longing for a world guided by love is as old as the human heart. Thank you for joining us in carrying the great dream forward through the next generation."
~ Ocean Robbins

* We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression --everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants --everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor --anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
-- George Bernard Shaw

"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no 'brief candle" to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."
-- George Bernard Shaw

Follow your dreams of a better world, and keep on trying, even when there seems to be little hope, because it is the right thing to do. We may never know how the seeds of kindness that we plant may help others on their journey, today, or even sometime far in the future. But Every act of compassion makes a difference! -- Robert Alan Silverstein

If we were to convince society to strive towards creating a better world, we would address all of the problems that endanger our future. -- Robert Alan Silverstein

* Set your sites on where you want to be, but focus on where you are now, and take each step, moment by moment. -- Robert Alan Silverstein

* The Earth Charter is important as an expression of the commitment of people throughout the Earth to evoke their own deepest moral, spiritual and ethical principles in the task of ensuring a sustainable future for those who inhabit the Earth now and those who will follow us on the Earth.
-- Maurice Strong

"I see a world in the future in which we understand that all life is related to us and we treat that life with great humility and respect."
-- David Suzuki

The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.
-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

* As we watch the sun go down, evening after evening, through the smog across the poisoned waters of our native earth, we must ask ourselves seriously whether we really wish some future universal historian on another planet to say about us: "With all their genius and with all their skill, they ran out of foresight and air and food and water and ideas," or, "They went on playing politics until their world collapsed around them."
~ U Thant

* Let go of the past and go for the future. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagined.
-- Henry David Thoreau

* All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil. The fight to the finish spirit is the one... characteristic we must posses if we are to face the future as finishers.
-- Henry David Thoreau

The path to a brighter future of the world leads through honest reconciliation of the conflicting interests and not through hatred and bloodshed. To follow that path means to enhance the moral power of the all-embracing idea of human solidarity.
-- Lech Walesa

The future is made of the same stuff as the present.
-- Simone Weil

The future is no more uncertain than the present.
~ Walt Whitman

"If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go.... This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future."
~ Terry Tempest Williams

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.
-- Oprah Winfrey

* Education is the way to move mountains, to build bridges, to change the world. Education is the path to the future. I believe that education is indeed freedom.
-- Oprah Winfrey

* "Energy Policy will be and should be driven by environmental policy in the future."
~ Timothy Wirth

My vision for the future? ... a world completely free from poverty.
-- Muhammad Yunus

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places -- and there are so many -- where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
-- Howard Zinn