the distinction between rich nations and poor nations is one of the great dominant political and international themes of our century.

Casually, unconsciously, but with deadly effectiveness, western man all round the globe destroyed the traditional gods and the ancient societies with his commerce and his science. ... Does it mean nothing to him if great areas of the world, where western influence has been predominant, emerge from this tutelage unable to return to the old life, yet unfitted for the new? It is hard to believe that the future could ever belong to men demonstrating irresponsibility on so vast a scale.

It is very much easier for a rich man to invest and grow richer than for the poor man to begin investing at all. And this is also true of nations.

The gaps in power, the gaps in wealth, the gaps in ideology which hold the nations apart also make up the abyss into which mankind can fall to annihilation.

There is no human failure greater than to launch a profoundly important endeavour and then leave it half done.

We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.

There is no human failure greater than to launch a profoundly important endeavour and then leave it half done. This is what the West has done with its colonial system. It shook all the societies in the world loose from their old moorings. But it seems indifferent whether or not they reach safe harbour in the end.