Anita Roddick

“But the minute we went public on the stock market, which is how our wealth was created, it was no longer how many people you employed, it was how much you were worth and how much your company was worth.”

“The market controls everything, but the market has no heart.”

“If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.”

“I traveled enormously during the 1960's, when you measured everything by where you traveled and what you did as travelers.”

“Years ago nobody was elected on the economic ticket. It was either the education platform, or it was health or it was other issues. It is only recently that economic values have superceded every other human value.”

“If I had learned more about business ahead of time, I would have been shaped into believing that it was only about finances and quality management.”

“The movement for the environment really only started in the mid 1970's.”

“If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just.”

“Cynicism is what passes for insight when courage is lacking.”

“But if you can create an honorable livelihood, where you take your skills and use them and you earn a living from it, it gives you a sense of freedom and allows you to balance your life the way you want.”

“I am still looking for the modern equivalent of those Quakers who ran successful businesses, made money because they offered honest products and treated their people decently... This business creed, sadly, seems long forgotten.”

“I want to work for a company that contributes to and is part of the community. I want something not just to invest in. I want something to believe in.”

“I didn't go to business school, didn't care about financial stuff and the stock market.”

“At The Body Shop we had always been measured by how many jobs we had created, and I got a major award from the Queen on that.”

“Look at the Quakers - they were excellent business people that never lied, never stole; they cared for their employees and the community which gave them the wealth. They never took more money out than they put back in.”

“Consumers have not been told effectively enough that they have huge power and that purchasing and shopping involve a moral choice.”

“I want to define success by redefining it. For me it isn't that solely mythical definition - glamour, allure, power of wealth, and the privilege from care. Any definition of success should be personal because it's so transitory. It's about shaping my own destiny.”

“If I can't do something for the public good, what the hell am I doing?”

“When you run an entrepreneurial business, you have hurry sickness - you don't look back, you advance and consolidate. But it is such fun.”

“Over the past decade... while many businesses have pursued what I call 'business as usual,' I have been part of a different, smaller business movement, one that tried to put idealism back on the agenda.”