Behind every successful man there's a lot of unsuccessful years.

Exxon, Coca-Cola, BHP Billiton and News Corporation have much more say in organising the global agenda than the planet's 5 billion mature-age voters without a ballot box.

For comprehensive Earth action, an all-of-the-Earth representative democracy is required. That is, a global parliament.

I am an optimist.

I have never met a person in whom I did not see myself reflected.

I think I could have been quite difficult to fathom as a youngster, this kid who didn't talk about himself very much.

I will be Green until the day I die, if not for a long time after.

I'm a very great non-violent character. I would never resort to violence to change anything.

I'm worried about the traditional media, but I think the new media is a plus for democracy.

I've always thought, and it gets tested at times, that I have a great faith in the fundamental goodness of human beings.

The future will either be green or not at all.

The pursuit of eternity is no longer the prerogative of the gods - it is the business of us all, here and now.

There are better alternatives... Australia should be exporting its solar technology, not its uranium.

There's a presumption that somehow you calculate beforehand whether something is going to be good politically or not. I simply don't.

We people of the Earth exist because our potential was there in the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, as the universe exploded into being.

Every time I get a bit worried about having made some second rate choices in life I go back and read about the Suffragettes or William Wilberforce, people who were 'wrong' in their own time, and think, 'Ah well.'

Globally the Greens have arisen like a spontaneous combustion, a reaction to the narrow-minded state-backed exploitation of resources and wealth for a few at the expense of the many.

I am aware that one should always make room for renewal in politics. A democracy is the healthier for the turnover of the depth of talent there is in its community.

I am not a conventionally religious man, but in the wilderness I have come closest to finding myself and knowing the universe and accepting God - by which I mean accepting all that I don't know.

I have seen such an immense change from the total repression and criminality of homosexuality in my lifetime. It does make me much more buoyant and optimistic about the future. If that change can occur in that time there's hope for many other changes.