A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.
In science, moreover, the work of the individual is so bound up with that of his scientific predecessors and contemporaries that it appears almost as an impersonal product of his generation.
We had a rule in Tibet that anyone proposing a new invention had to guarentee that it was beneficial, or at least harmless, for seven generations of humans before it could be adopted.
I think I did in the sense that there's a whole generation coming up behind us that was engaged, inspired, worked for change during the course of my presidency, saw what was possible. And that generation, it's coming.
What I'm interested in doing after I get out of the presidency is to make sure that I'm working with that next generation so that they understand you can't just rely on inspiration.
I don't want to succumb to the idea that for the generation, or generations, raised on television, the text is irrelevant or so intimidating that they won't deal with it. If you teach, you see this is not true. It may be that newer generations do not worship the text as some of their elders do.
Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us to restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.
My generation of radicals and breakers-down never found anything to take the place of the old virtues of work and courage and the old graces of courtesy and politeness.