Quotes by John Boyd Orr

About John Boyd Orr:

John Boyd Orr, 1st Baron Boyd-Orr was a Scottish teacher, doctor, biologist and politician who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his scientific research into nutrition and his work as the first Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). He was the co-founder and the first President (1960–1971) of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS).
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Our civilization is now in the transition stage between the age of warring empires and a new age of world unity and peace.

John Boyd Orr

Measured in time of transport and communication, the whole round globe is now smaller than a small European country was a hundred years ago.

John Boyd Orr

When the fabric of society is so rigid that it cannot change quickly enough, adjustments are achieved by social unrest and revolutions.

John Boyd Orr

There can be no peace in the world so long as a large proportion of the population lack the necessities of life and believe that a change of the political and economic system will make them available. World peace must be based on world plenty.

John Boyd Orr

However difficult it may be to bring it about, some form of world government, with agreed international law and means of enforcing the law, is inevitable.

John Boyd Orr

In recent times, European nations, with the use of gunpowder and other technical improvements in warfare, controlled practically the whole world. One, the British Empire, brought under one government a quarter of the earth and its inhabitants.

John Boyd Orr

Some think the worst horrors of war might be avoided by an international agreement not to use atomic bombs. This is a vain hope.

John Boyd Orr

The history of our civilization has been one of intermittent war.

John Boyd Orr

Science has produced such powerful weapons that in a war between great powers there would be neither victor nor vanquished. Both would be overwhelmed in destruction.

John Boyd Orr

The increase of territory and power of empires by force of arms has been the policy of all great powers, and it has always been possible to get the approval of their state religion.

John Boyd Orr

It is said that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. It may well be that a war neurosis stirred up by propaganda of fear and hatred is the prelude to destruction.

John Boyd Orr

Our civilization has evolved through the continuous adjustment of society to the stimulus of new knowledge.

John Boyd Orr

If the views I have expressed be right, we can think of our civilization evolving with the growth of knowledge from small wandering tribes to large settled law.

John Boyd Orr

Though the general principles of statecraft have survived the rise and fall of empires, every increase in knowledge has brought about changes in the political, economic, and social structure.

John Boyd Orr

Empires won by conquest have always fallen either by revolt within or by defeat by a rival.

John Boyd Orr

Nearly every country in the world is now becoming industrialized as rapidly as it can.

John Boyd Orr

The real evil of the Russian communist state is not communism. It is the secret police and the concentration camp.

John Boyd Orr

In the last five or six thousand years, empires one after another have arisen, waxed powerful by wars of conquest, and fallen by internal revolution or attack from without.

John Boyd Orr

We are now physically, politically, and economically one world and nations so interdependent that the absolute national sovereignty of nations is no longer possible.

John Boyd Orr

When the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century brought a rapid increase in wealth, the demand of workers for a fair share of the wealth they were creating was conceded only after riots and strikes.

John Boyd Orr

Author Bio

  • NameJohn Boyd Orr
  • DescriptionScottish nutritionist, Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
  • BornSeptember 23, 1880
  • DiedJune 25, 1971
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionBiologist; Physician; Politician
  • AwardsNobel Peace Prize; Military Cross; Distinguished Service Order