“The farmer and the farm, like "the environment," are looked upon, for example, as means to offset trade deficits. The farm is a place where we can externalize costs. The cost of pesticides to the farmer and the cost of the pesticides to the soil and groundwater are regarded similarly by the public: "a serious problem that something ought to be done about." But the problem is more fundamental than this glib statement would indicate, for soil pollution is an expense of production. So are pesticides and nitrates in our farm wells. So is the loss of farmers from the land.” WellsMeanDoneProblemLossEnvironmentLandExampleSeriousOughtCostFundamentalsTradeProductionsStatementsSoilExpensesFarmsFarmersPollutionDeficitPesticidesGroundwater Author:Wes Jackson
“The work of the painter, the poet or the musician, like the myths and symbols of the savage, ought to be seen by us, if not as a superior form of knowledge, at least as the most fundamental and the only one really common to us all; scientific thought is merely the sharp point more penetrating because it has been whetted on the stone of fact, but at the cost of some loss of substance and its effectiveness is to be explained by its power to pierce sufficiently deeply for the main body of the tool to follow the head.” IfsHas BeensFactsBodyFormLossCommonPoetOughtCostMusicianToolsStonesFundamentalsMythSuperiorsPainterSymbolsSubstanceSavagesEffectivenessPierce Book:Tristes Tropiques Source: Tristes Tropiques
“Surely we have had enough of confusing maleness with "usefulness" and other human virtues. If men had a more modest view of what their masculinity ought to entail, perhaps they could move on from debilitating feelings of loss to tackling their real economic and political problems.” IfsMenHumansRealEnoughFeelingsProblemMovingPoliticalLossViewsVirtueEconomicOughtModestMasculinityConfusingUsefulnessHad EnoughTacklingMaleness Author:Ellen Willis
“It is abundantly evident that, however natural it may be for us to feel sorrow at the death of our relatives, that sorrow is an error and an evil, and we ought to overcome it. There is no need to sorrow for them, for they have passed into a far wider and happier life. If we sorrow for our own fancied separation from them, we are in the first place weeping over an illusion, for in truth they are not separated from us; and secondly, we are acting selfishly, because we are thinking more of our own apparent loss than of their great and real gain.” IfsThinkingNeedsFeelsFirstsMayRealDeathEvilNaturalLossActingOughtSorrowIllusionGainsOvercomingErrorsSeparationEvidentWeepingHappier Life Author:Charles Webster Leadbeater
“Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.” HumansHas BeensMadeDoneEarthValuesEvilGivenNationsNaturalLossHalfPovertyOughtSpeciesImprovementInventionProvidingInheritanceMonopolyCultivationWretchednessHuman Inventions Book:Agrarian Justice Source: Agrarian Justice
“We ought to assure the public that we'll have a full and complete and transparent investigation whenever there's a loss of life because of police action.” ActionLossOughtPoliceInvestigationTransparent Author:Mike Pence
“Our colleges ought to have lit up in us a lasting relish for a better kind of man, a loss of appetite for mediocrities.” MenKindLossCollegeOughtLastingAppetiteMediocrityLitRelish Book:Essays, Comments, and Reviews Source: Essays, Comments, and Reviews