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Daniel Quinn

Daniel Quinn Quotes

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Famous Daniel Quinn Quotes

“This is considered almost holy work by farmers and ranchers. Kill off everything you can't eat. Kill off anything that eats what you eat. Kill off anything that doesn't feed what you eat." "It IS holy work, in Taker culture. The more competitors you destroy, the more humans you can bring into the world, and that makes it just about the holiest work there is. Once you exempt yourself from the law of limited competition, everything in the world except your food and the food of your food becomes an enemy to be exterminated.”

PhilosophyAgricultureExploitationEcology
Book:Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
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“The evening I went for a walk. To walk for the sake of walking is something I seldom do.Inside my apartment I'd felt inexplicably anxious. I needed to talk to someone, to be reassured. Or perhaps I needed to confess my sin: I was once again having impure thoughts about saving the world. Or it was neither of these--I was afraid I was dreaming. Indeed, considering the events of the day, it was likely that I was dreaming. I sometimes fly in my dreams, and each time I say to myself, "At last--it's happening in reality and not in a dream!" In any case, I needed to talk to someone, and I was alone. This is my habitual condition, by choice--or so I tell myself. Mere acquaintanceship leaves me unsatisfied, and few people are willing to accept the burdens and risks of friendship as I conceive of it.”

SolitudeAnxietyFriendships
Book:Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
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“It is in fact an orderly community. The green plants are food for the plant eaters, which are food for the predators, and some of those predators are food for still other predators. And what's left over is food for the scavengers, who return to the earth nutrients needed by the green plants. It's a system that has worked magnificently for billions of years. Filmmakers understandably love footage of gore and battle, but any naturalist will tell you that the species are not in any sense at war with one another. The gazelle and lion are enemies only in the minds of the Takers. The lion that comes across a herd of gazelles doesn't massacre them as an enemy would. It kills one, not to satisfy its hatred of gazelles but to satisfy its hunger, and once it has made its kill the gazelles are perfectly content to go on grazing with the lion in the midst.”

CommunityNatural Order
Book:Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
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“In your cultural prison, which inmates wield the power?" "Ah," I said. "The male inmates. Especially the white male inmates." "Yes, that's right. But you understand that these white male inmates are indeed inmates and not warders. For all their power and privilege - for all that they lord it over everyone else in the prison - not one of them has a key that will unlock the gate." "Yes, that's true. Donald Trump can do a lot of things I can't, but he can no more get out of the prison than I can. But what does this have to do with justice?" "Justice demands that people other than white males have power in the prison." "Yes, I see. But what are you saying? That this isn't true?" "True? Of course it's true that males - and, as you say, especially white males - have called the shots inside the prison for thousands of years, perhaps even from the beginning. Of course it's true that this is unjust. And of course it's true that power and wealth within the prison should be equitably redistributed. But it should be noted that what is crucial to your survival as a race is not the redistribution of power and wealth within the prison but rather the destruction of the prison itself.”

Donald TrumpRewilding
Book:Ishmael
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“Wherever you go..., you'll see Heaven and Hell on every side... in us. Look for them and you'll soon know them. There on your left, Hell shuffles by, carrying a reluctant, gloomy chicken, his only comrade. There on your right, Heaven spring past, singing - a lunatic, a little too much for civilized contact. Just the way it always was.”

HeavenHellPurgatory
Book:Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife: On the Other Side Known Commonly As "The Little Book"
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“The deer aren't our prey or our possessions -- they're us. They're us at one point in the cycle of life and we're them at another point in the cycle. The deer are twice your parents, for your mother and father are deer, and the deer that gave you its life today was mother and father to you as well, since you wouldn't be here if it weren't for that deer.”

IfsWellsTodayMotherFatherParentPossessionCyclesPreyDeerMother And FatherCycle Of Life
Author:Daniel Quinn
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“Remember that your tracks are one strand of the web woven endlessly in the hand of god. They're tied to those of the mouse in the field, the eagle on the mountain, the crab in its hold, the lizard beneath its rock. The leaf that falls to the ground a thousand miles away touches your life. The impress of your foot in the soil is felt through a thousand generations.”

HandsRememberFallFeltGenerationsFeetRocksFieldsThousandMountainTrackMilesSoilTiedImpressMiceLeafsEaglesWovenStrandsMiles AwayHands Of GodCrabsThousand MilesLizards
Author:Daniel Quinn
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“To you, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism look very different, but to me they look the same. Many of you would say that something like Buddhism doesn't even belong on the list, since it doesn't link salvation to divine worship, but to me this is just a quibble. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all perceive human beings as flawed, wounded creatures in need of salvation, and all rely fundamentally on revelations that spell out how salvation is to be attained, either by departing from this life or rising above it.”

NeedsHumansLooksDifferentHuman BeingsChristianityDivineBuddhismCreaturesWorshipSalvationIslamListsThis LifePerceiveRelyRisingRevelationsLinksSpellsHinduismWoundedJudaismFlawedRise AboveDeparting
Author:Daniel Quinn
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“If the world is saved, it will not be by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all. Why not new minds with new programs? Because where you find people working on programs, you don't find new minds, you find old ones. Programs and old minds go together like buggy whips and buggies.”

PeopleIfsWorldMindTogetherProgramSavedWhy NotWhips
Book:Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure
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“Man's destiny was to conquer and rule the world, and this is what he's done.. almost. He hasn't quite made it, and it looks as though this may be his undoing. The problem is that man's conquest of the world has itself devastated the world. And in spite of all the mastery we've attained, we don't have enough mastery to stop devastating the world.. or to repair the devastation we've already wrought.”

PeopleMenWorldLooksMayMadeDoneEnoughProblemDestinyMade ItConquerSpiteMasteryConquestDevastatedDevastationUndoing
Book:Ishmael: A Novel
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“Once you learn to discern the voice of Mother Culture humming in the background, telling her story over and over again to the people of your culture, you’ll never stop being conscious of it. Wherever you go for the rest of your life, you’ll be tempted to say to the people around you, “how can you listen to this stuff and not recognize it for what it is?”

PeopleLifeStoriesMotherCultureStuffVoiceLearningConsciousBackgroundsTemptedRest Of Your LifeHumming
Book:Ishmael: A Novel
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