I still can't figure out what inspired me to do physics. But since I was nine or ten years old, I wanted to be like [Albert] Einstein. He was my hero. I knew no physicists. I knew no scientists. I had nobody around me. And I went to a convent that didn't even have higher mathematics and physics. I taught myself these subjects in order to get into university.
Vandana ShivaI think the American people should see that the corporations abandoned them long ago. That people will have to build their own economies and rebuild democracy as a living democracy. The corporations belong to no land, no country, no people. They have no loyalty to anything apart from the base-line - their profits. And the profits today are on an unimaginable scale; it has become illegitimate, criminal profit - profits extracted at the cost of life.
Vandana ShivaThe liberation of the earth, the liberation of women, the liberation of all humanity is the next step of freedom we need to work for, and it's the next step of peace that we need to create.
Vandana ShivaThe problem of numbers can only be dealt with by recognizing that people have a fundamental right to economic security. If you provide them with economic and environmental security, the population will stabilize itself.
Vandana ShivaAs usual, in every scheme that worsens the position of the poor, it is the poor who are invoked as beneficiaries.
Vandana ShivaWhenever we engage in consumption or production patterns which take more than we need, we are engaging in violence.
Vandana ShivaThere is now a patent restricting the use of an herb called philantis neruri for curing jaundice. An even more blatant example is the use of turmeric for healing wounds, which is something every mother and grandmother does in every home in India. Now the Mississippi Medical Center claims to have "invented" the capacity of turmeric to heal wounds.
Vandana Shiva