“The global warming is going on. These are not single cases. These are all part of a general way we've been looking at the world. As long as we look at the world that way it's going to go on. Because the idea that the important thing is for some people get rich while the rest of the people work for them is very deeply dug in...” PeopleWorldWayLooksLongImportantIdeasCasesRichGoes OnImportant ThingsGlobal WarmingGet RichVery Deep Author:W. S. Merwin
“It's an attitude of superiority. We are superior to the rest of life. The Book of Genesis says: 'Increase and multiply and have dominion over the birds of the air and the animals and so forth.' You run it; it's yours; do what you like with it. I don't know how old that text is, but it represents an attitude that probably really got going with the beginning of agriculture. Before that, the hunter-gatherers were gentler people than the agriculture.” PeopleKnowsBookRunningAnimalAttitudeKnow HowAirBirdIncreaseSuperiorsAgricultureSuperiorityHuntersDominionGenesisRest Of LifeHunter GatherersBook Of Genesis Author:W. S. Merwin
“Politically it would be terribly repressive to prevent people from having as many children as they want. But something's got to prevent it; and it won't be pleasant... We're still behaving in ways that have become disastrous... I don't think this helps us to survive... We're very species-centric... and now exist at the expense of every other form of life on Earth.” PeopleThinkingWayWantChildrenStillsHelpingWould BeEarthFormSpeciesPleasantExpenses Author:W. S. Merwin
“The attempt to live that way, the attempt to treat everybody - it fails all the time - but the attempt to treat people as equals is a good attempt. It's a very good attempt. And there have been very few governments that have come anywhere near it in the past. The Greeks began to, the Romans began to - they both failed.” PeopleWayHas BeensGovernmentPastFailingTreatsVery GoodGreek Author:W. S. Merwin
“There are poets who believe that you shouldn't engage at all in any cause. And there's something to be said for that. Because you don't want to - I think most political poetry is very bad. And it's very bad because you know too much to start with. You have a sense that you're right, and you're trying to tell other people what's right. And I think that's always kind of fundamentalism, and I don't like it.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWantTryingBelieveKindSaidPoliticalCausesToo MuchPoetPoetry IsFundamentalism Author:W. S. Merwin
“I think it's good for anybody to learn languages. Americans are particularly limited in that way. Europeans less so... We're beginning to have Spanish move in on English in the states because of all the people coming from Hispanic countries... and we're beginning to learn some Spanish. And I think that's a good thing... Only having one language is very limiting... You get to think that's the way the human race is made; there's only one language worth speaking... Well, this isn't good for English.” PeopleThinkingWayHumansWellsMadeCountryStatesMovingLanguageRaceGood ThingsHuman RaceHispanicSpeaking Well Author:W. S. Merwin
“In the time that I have been acquainted with this region I have become increasingly aware of it as a testament of water, the origin and guide of its contours and gradients and of all the lives - the plants and small creatures, and the culture - that evolved here. That was always here to be seen, of course, and the recognition has forced itself, in one form or other, upon people in every part of the world who have been directly involved with the growing of living things. The gardener who ignores it is soon left with no garden.” PeopleWorldHas BeensFormCultureCoursesLeftWaterGrowingInvolvedCreaturesRainGardenRiversPlantGuidesRecognitionRegionsTestamentLiving ThingsGardenerSmall Creatures Author:W. S. Merwin
