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Quote by Dervla Murphy

“Without evading the grimness of life in much of modern Africa, one can recognize that this continent is not yet sick as our continent is sick. Most Africans remain plugged into reality. In contrast we have become disconnected from it, reduced to compulsively consuming units, taught to worship 'economic growth' - the ultimate unreality in a finite world.”

Quote by Dervla Murphy

Author

Dervla Murphy, born on November 28, 1931, is an Irish cyclist and travel writer, renowned for her adventurous bicycle journeys across Africa, Asia, and South America. more

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“[On Addis Ababa:] Among the city's handicaps are an immaturity for which no one can be blamed, as it was founded only eighty years ago, and a proliferation of architectural excesses for which many people can and should be blamed.”

People Should Years Cities Years Ago Architecture Excess Eighty Handicaps Proliferation Immaturity

Author:Dervla Murphy

“With our mad lust for Uniformity and a Higher Standard of Living and Expanding Markets, we go to a country like Afghanistan and cruelly try to jerk her forward two thousand years in two decades, giving no thought to the profound shock this must be to her national psychology.”

Source: Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

“Undoubtedly the Afghans must be, by our standards, the best-looking people in the world. They have everything; height, proportions, carriage, features and complexion.”

People World Standards Features Height Proportion Asia Carriages Complexion

Book:Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

Source: Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

“The more I see of life in these 'undeveloped countries' and of the methods adopted to 'improve' them, the more depressed I become. It seems criminal that the backwardness of a country like Afghanistan should be used as an excuse for America and Russia to have a tug-of-war for possession.”

Should War Country Seems America Used Method Excuse Possession Criminals Russia Afghanistan Asia Imperialism Adopted Tug Of War

Book:Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

Source: Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

“This is a city of absolute enchantment in the literal sense of the word. It loosens all the bonds binding the traveller to his own age and sets him free to live in a past that is vital and crude but never ugly. Herat is as old as history and as moving as a great epic poem - if Afghanistan had nothing else it would have been worth coming to experience this.”

Ifs Has Beens Age Past Moving Cities Absolutes Ugly Afghanistan Epic Asia Literal Traveller Crude Binding Enchantment Epic Poems

Book:Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

Source: Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

“one of the advantages of cycling is that it automatically prevents a journey from becoming an Expedition.”

Journey Becoming Advantage Cycling Expeditions

Book:Full Tilt: Dunkirk to Delhi by Bicycle

Source: Full Tilt: Dunkirk to Delhi by Bicycle

“Buying a bicycle is a momentous event, akin to marriage: you are acquiring a partner.”

Events Partners Buying Bicycle

Book:South From the Limpopo

Source: South From the Limpopo

“perhaps there is something more than courtesy behind the dissembling reticence of childhood. ... Most artists dislike having their incomplete work considered and discussed and this analogy, I think, is valid. The child is incomplete, too, and is constantly experimenting as he seeks his own style of thought and feeling.”

Thinking Children Feelings Artist Behinds Childhood Style Dislike Courtesy Incomplete Analogies Thoughts And Feelings Reticence

Author:Dervla Murphy

“one feels guilty on behalf of Western civilisation. What damage are we doing, blindly and swiftly, to those races who are being taught that because we are materially richer we must be emulated without question? What compels us to infect everyone else with our own sick urgency to change, soften and standardise? How can we have the effrontery to lord it over peoples who retain what we have lost - a sane awareness that what matters most is immeasurable?”

Feels Matter Lost Race Lord Awareness Taught Sick Western Guilty Damage Sane What Matters Behalf Urgency Civilisation

Author:Dervla Murphy

“It is far easier to explain to a three-year-old how babies are made than to explain the processes whereby bread or sugar appear on the table.”

Years Made Three Process Baby Easier Tables Bread Three Years Sugar Three Year Olds

Author:Dervla Murphy