Home / Quotes / Quote by Bill Mollison

Quote by Bill Mollison

“I'm certain I don't know what permaculture is. That's what I like about it - it's not dogmatic. But you've got to say it's about the only organized system of design that ever was. And that makes it extremely eerie.”

Quote by Bill Mollison

Author

Bill Mollison was an Australian author, ecologist, and pioneer in sustainable design. Born in 1928, he passed away on September 24, 2016. Mollison is renowned for his contributions to ecological agriculture and sustainable community design, particularly for co-founding the Permaculture movement with David Holmgren. more

You May Also Like

“Another thing I find extremely eerie is that when people build a house, they almost exactly get it wrong. They don't just get it partly wrong, they get it dead wrong.”

People House Eerie

Author:Bill Mollison

“If you let people loose in a landscape and tell them to choose a house site, half of them will go sit on the ridges where they'll die in the next fire, or where you can't get water to them. Or they'll sit in all the dam sites. Or they'll sit in all the places that will perish in the next big wind.”

People Ifs Bigs Dies Next House Water Half Fire Wind Landscape Site Dams Ridges

Author:Bill Mollison

“At least half of every city is wrong. From latitude 30 degrees to latitude 60, say, you've got to have the long axis of the house facing the sun. If the land is cut up into squares, that makes half of all houses wrong if they face the road. Even houses way in the country, and way off the road, face the bloody road. And from there, you just go wronger all the way.”

Ifs Way Long Country Faces House Cities Half Sun Cutting Land Degrees Squares Bloody Axes Latitude

Author:Bill Mollison

“One of the great rules of design is do something basic right. Then everything gets much more right of itself. But if you do something basic wrong - if you make what I call a Type 1 Error - you can get nothing else right.”

Ifs Design Type Errors

Author:Bill Mollison

“There are a few societies that show signs of having been very rational about the physics of construction and the physics of real life. Some of the old middle-Eastern societies had downdraft systems over whole cities, and passive, rapid-evaporation ice-making systems. They were rational people using good physical principles to make themselves comfortable without additional sources of energy.”

People Real Whole Shows Energy Cities Principles Middle Source Comfortable Physics Real Life Rational Ice Construction Passive Eastern Rapids Evaporation

Author:Bill Mollison

“Most modern homes are simply uninhabitable without electricity - you couldn't flush the toilet without it. It's a huge dependency situation.”

Home Situation Modern Huge Electricity Toilets Dependency

Author:Bill Mollison

“The city needs a car like a fish needs a bicycle.”

Needs Cities Car Fishes Bicycle

Author:Dean Kamen

“A house should look after itself - as the weather heats up the house cools down, as the weather cools down the house heats up. It's simple stuff, you know? We've known how to do it for a long time.”

Knows Should Looks Long House Stuff Simple Known Long Time Weather Heat Cool Down

Author:Bill Mollison

“That we don't design agriculture to be sustainable is totally eerie. We design it to be a disaster, and of course, we get a disaster.”

Courses Design Disaster Agriculture Eerie

Author:Bill Mollison

“I think we probably have a racial death wish. We don't understand anything about where we live, and we don't want to.”

Thinking Want Wish Death Wish

Author:Bill Mollison