James Goldsmith Quotes
101 James Goldsmith Quotes
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My identity was never derived from the business. A business is a means, not an end.
James Goldsmith
The fact that I do these things doesn’t mean I think I’ll succeed. The question is: Are you more uncomfortable doing something or standing by? I couldn’t stand by and watch the wreck even if it cost me a lot of abuse.
James Goldsmith
[To Prime Minister Edward Heath in the 1974 election.] Your advertising is terrible and your organization is worse.
James Goldsmith
I like to think of myself as having political activities with no intention of being a politician.
James Goldsmith
Industry is a real world of live people.
James Goldsmith
I’ve never heard such nonsense.
James Goldsmith
In that time the world had changed. I never dreamed that interest rates would go down from 15% to 5%.
James Goldsmith
Profits today are jobs tomorrow.
James Goldsmith
One of the defects of modern culture is that we are taught to believe that every problem can be measured in economic terms. But when society’s principal tool is measurement rather than understanding, great mistakes follow.
James Goldsmith
If a farmer cultivates a variety of crops so as to feed his family, his work is not taken into account in the GNP because the food that he produces is not sold. No monetary transaction has taken place. But if he stops growing a variety of crops and decides to concentrate on only one, a monoculture, then everything changes. He starts to sell his product in the marketplace and in order to feed his family he buys food grown by other farmers. By buying and selling he has become part of the official economy.
James Goldsmith
The economy is a tool to serve us. It is not a demi-god to be served by society.
James Goldsmith
Modern society believes in intensive farming because modern culture is based on measuring and counting rather than on trying to understand long-term and more important consequences…
James Goldsmith
[In 1993 on the potential dangers resulting from a loss of genetic diversity.] History supplies many well-known warnings. For examples, there are still 5000 varieties of potato grown around the world. But in Ireland in the nineteenth century, all potatoes descended from only two varieties. The genetic limitation resulted in a lack of resistance to potato blight, which therefore reached epidemic proportions and caused the great famine.
James Goldsmith
In the primal world, man’s relationship with nature is not one of exploitation, but one of harmony. In the modern western tradition, however, the natural world is something to be investigated, explained and ultimately used.
James Goldsmith
[When close to bankruptcy in July 1957 on being saved by a bank strike which bought him time to negotiate a business sale.] The only really lucky thing that ever happened to me in business.
James Goldsmith
[On a friend observing ‘Jimmy always lived his life in compartments.’] I could not live it any other way.
James Goldsmith
Technology can be transferred anywhere around the world.
James Goldsmith
I am entirely for free enterprise and free markets. But I’m not for the destruction of one’s society.
James Goldsmith
People aren’t willing to look at fundamentals.
James Goldsmith
What a wise thing. You should be constantly an apprentice. You should be constantly finding new things to learn and do. New challenges to find.
James Goldsmith
The world is full of opportunities.
James Goldsmith
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