We have not inherited the earth from our Fathers.
We are borrowing it from our children.
Thanks for your help -- any other ideas? (Or maybe I should stop here! :-)
Lisa
------------------------
Lisa,
I have seen this quoted as an Inuit proverb from northern Canada in a
report by the Social Affairs Council in Quebec. Hope this helps a
bit.
-------------------------
Hallo - I think it comes from that famous speech which as is commonly
believed was given by the chief of American Indians in the middle of
the last century. The problem with this speech is that it all was
just made up about 25 years ago. That chief actually delivered his
speech to the congress but it was about something else. When they
were making a TV document about the nature, they used one sentence
from that speech as an introduction and then continued with their own
talk. But editors of the TV realised that it would look much better
if the whole text was created by the chief. So they made this way.
But maybe the sentence you are looking for was the original one by
he chief, who knows?
Regards,
Zbynek Ulcak
--------------------------
Lisa -
I have a large Sierra Club poster hanging on my wall with a similar
proverb. It reads: "Treat the Earth well...It was not given to you by your
parents...It was lent to you by your children." According to the poster, it is
a Kenyan Proverb.
Don't know if this helps or just confuses the issue.
Marjorie
--------------------------
The USENET Fortune File of quotes [http//www.starling.com]
attributes that quote to David Brower. He is an emminent
conservationist who I think is affiliated with Earth Island in
San Francisco. Their version of the quote is: "We don't inherit
the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."
---------------------------
This is a proverb from Kenya. "Treat the earth well. It was not given to
you by your parents but loaned to you by your children."
--
-------------------------- Lisa,
I have looked up the report in question. The proverb is cited on page 157 of "Agir ensemble - Rapport sur le developpement" by the Conseil des affaires sociales, Gouvernement du Quebec, gaetan morin editeur, 1990. It is quoted as:"Nos lacs et nos rivieres, nous n'en heritons pas de nos parents, nous les empruntons a nos enfants" which translates into:"Our lakes and rivers, we don't inherit them from our parents, we borrow them from our children".
------------------------------- Lisa M. Bauer Communications Specialist North Central Region SARE Program 13-A Activities Bldg. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, NE 68583-0840
402-472-0265 402-472-0280 (fax) sare003@unlvm.unl.edu