Quotes

« A creative adult is a child who survived. »

Ursula Le Guin

« No one in the world was as rich as they were, precisely because they owned nothing and wanted nothing more. »

Joseph Kessel

The dignity of the present is the surest thing we have left in the face of the uncertainty of future victories.

Corinne Morel Darleux, in Plutôt couler en beauté que flotter sans grâce

Man is mad. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible nature, unaware that the Nature he destroys is the God he worships.

Hubert Reeves

All things have already been said, but since no one listens, we must always begin again.

André Gide

« The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lies will now be accepted as truth, and the truth be defamed as lies, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world is being destroyed (...). And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please. »

Hannah Arendt

Only what is good for everyone is worthy of you. Only what neither privileges nor debases anyone deserves to be produced. We can be happier with less opulence, for in a society without privilege there are no poor.

André Gorz

Whoever teaches without emancipating stultifies. And whoever emancipates need not worry about what the emancipated person should learn.

Jacques Rancière, in Le Maître ignorant

I feel far prouder of the victory I win over myself when, in the very heat of battle, I force myself to yield to the strength of my opponent's reasoning, than grateful for the victory I win over him thanks to his weakness.

Montaigne, in Les Essais (Book 3, Chapter 8)

« The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence. »

Charles Bukowski

Talking about the "limits of growth" within a capitalist market economy makes as much sense as talking about the limits of war in a warrior society. The moralizing rhetoric voiced today by all sorts of well meaning environmentalists is just as naive as that of multinational corporations is manipulative. Capitalism can no more be "persuaded" to limit its growth than a human being can be persuaded to stop breathing.

Murray Bookchin