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Wade Davis

Wade Davis Quotes

Anthropologist

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Famous Wade Davis Quotes

“If diversity is a source of wonder, its opposite - the ubiquitous condensation to some blandly amorphous and singulary generic modern culture that takes for granted an impoverished environment - is a source of dismay. There is, indeed, a fire burning over the earth, taking with it plants and animals, cultures, languages, ancient skills and visionary wisdom. Quelling this flame, and re-inventing the poetry of diversity is perhaps the most importent challenge of our times.”

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Book:The wayfinders: why ancient wisdom matters in the modern world
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“We accept it as normal that people who have never been on the land, who have no history or connection to the country, may legally secure the right to come in and, by the very nature of their enterprises, leave in their wake a cultural and physical landscape utterly transformed and desecrated. What's more, in granting such mining concessions, often initially for trivial sums to speculators from distant cities, companies cobbled together with less history than my dog, the government places no cultural or market value on the land itself.”

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Author:Wade Davis
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“Sensitivity to nature is not an innate attribute of indigenous peoples. It is a consequence of adaptive choices that have resulted in the development of highly specialized peripheral skills. but those choices in turn spring from a comprehensive view of nature and the universe in which man and woman are perceived as but elements inextricably linked to the whole.”

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Author:Wade Davis
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“The world can only appear monochromatic to those who persist in interpreting what they experience through the lens of a single cultural paradigm, their own. For those with the eyes to see and the heart to feel, it remains a rich and complex topography of the spirit.”

WorldFeelsHeartEyeSpiritRichRemainsComplexesPersistLensesParadigmInterpretingTopographyMonochromatic
Book:The wayfinders: why ancient wisdom matters in the modern world
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“If we accept that we are all cut from the same genetic cloth, all cultures share the same genius. And whether that genius is placed into technological wizardry which has been our great achievement, or, by contrast, placed into the unraveling of complex threads of memory inherent in a myth is simply a matter of choice.”

IfsHas BeensMatterChoicesCultureMemoriesAcceptingCuttingShareGeniusAchievementComplexesMythContrastThreadInherentTechnologicalGreat AchievementWizardryUnraveling
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“The problem is that those of us sympathetic with the plight of indigenous people view them as quaint and colorful, but somehow reduced to margins of history as the real world [(our world)] moves on We will be known as an era in which we stood by and either actively endorsed or passively accepted the massive destruction of both biological and cultural diversity on the planet.”

PeopleWorldRealProblemMovingViewsKnownPlanetsDiversityDestructionAcceptedErasMassiveOur WorldReal WorldIndigenousMarginsSympatheticColorfulCultural DiversityPlightIndigenous PeopleQuaint
Author:Wade Davis
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“Cultural survival is not about preservation, sequestering indigenous peoples in enclaves like some sort of zoological specimens. Change itself does note destroy a culture. All societies are constantly evolving. Indeed a culture survives when it has enough confidence in its past and enough say in its future to maintain its spirit and essence through all the changes it will inevitably undergo.”

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Author:Wade Davis
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“If diversity is a source of wonder, its opposite - the ubiquitous condensation to some blandly amorphous and singularly generic modern culture that takes for granted an impoverished environment - is a source of dismay. There is, indeed, a fire burning over the earth, taking with it plants and animals, cultures, languages, ancient skills and visionary wisdom. Quelling this flame, and re-inventing the poetry of diversity is perhaps the most important challenge of our times.”

IfsEarthCultureLanguageChallengesAnimalWonderEnvironmentFireModernSourceSkillsDiversityOppositesPlantAncientGrantedBurningFlamesOur TimeVisionariesInventingGenericPlants And AnimalsDismayModern CultureFire BurningCondensation
Author:Wade Davis
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