118 Quotes by Jeffrey Sachs

The Russian drama began at the end of 1991, when the Soviet Union mercifully ended. Russia and 14 other new countries emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union. Every one of those 15 new states faced a profound historical, economic, financial, social and political challenge.

This is our greatest challenge: learning to live in a crowded and interconnected world that is creating unprecedented pressures on human society and on the physical environment.

We are not at war (except with our own demons).

Everybody needs to understand that policies are going to change to make it unprofitable if you wreck the planet, those companies that continue exploring and developing fossil fuel resources for which there is no safe use are going to pay a very heavy cost for that.

The aspiration of society is the flourishing of its members, this report gives evidence on how to achieve societal well?being. It's not by money alone, but also by fairness, honesty, trust and good health.

We had a booming stock market in 1929 and then went into the world's greatest depression. We have a booming stock market in 1999. Will the bubble somehow burst, and then we enter depression? Well, some things are not different.

The time has come to end this charade. The debts are unaffordable. If they won't cancel the debts I would suggest obstruction; you do it yourselves. Africa should say: 'thank you very much but we need this money to meet the needs of children who are dying right now so we will put the debt servicing payments into urgent social investment in health, education, drinking water, control of AIDS and other needs.'

America's government is not even aware of the gap between its commitments and action, because almost nobody in authority understands the actions that would be needed to meet the commitments.

Despite a decade of criticism and budget cuts, the specialised UN agencies have far more expertise and hands-on experience than any other organisations in the world.