To pretend that civilization can exist without destroying its own landbase and the landbases and cultures of others is to be entirely ignorant of history, biology, thermodynamics, morality, and self-preservation.
Learning has to come from doing, not intellectualizing.
I think it’s very important for us to start to build a culture of resistance, because what we’re doing isn’t working, clearly.
So long as we only believe in the justice of the state, of the law-made by those in power, to serve those in power-so long will we continue to be exploited by those in power.
We have a need for enchantment that is as deep and devoted as our need for food and water.
Premise Eight: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system.
The stories we are told shape the way we see the world, which shapes the way we experience the world.
Hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.
Civilization can never be sustainable.
Writing is really very easy. Tap a vein and bleed onto the page. Everything else is just technical.
If your homeland were invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?
As is true for most people I know, I’ve always loved learning. As is also true for most people I know, I always hated school. Why is that?
Every morning when I awake I ask myself whether I should write or blow up a dam. I tell myself I should keep writing, though I’m not sure that’s right.
All writers are propagandists.
We have been too kind to those who are killing the planet. We have been inexcusably, unforgivably, insanely kind.
When we realize the degree of agency we actually do have, we no longer have to “hope” at all. We simply do the work.
There is always money to kill people. There is never enough money for life affirming ends.
We are members of the most destructive culture ever to exist. Our assault on the natural world, on indigenous and other cultures, on women, on children, on all of us through the possibility of nuclear suicide and other means – all these are unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity.
Forests precede us and deserts dog our heels.
I am only so beautiful as the character of my relationships, only so rich as I enrich those around me, only so alive as I enliven those I greet.
If any thing can be predicated as universally true of uncultivated man, it is that he will not labour beyond what is absolutely necessary to maintain his existence.