Ishmael

Of course it’s not enough. But if you begin anywhere else, there’s no hope at all.

If the will is there, the method will be found.

Mankind was not needed to bring order to the world.

The premise of the Taker story is the world belongs to man.... The premise of the Leaver story is man belongs to the world.

The world was not made for any one species.

I no longer think of what we’re doing as a blunder. We’re not destroying the world because we’re clumsy. We’re destroying the world because we are, in a very literal and deliberate way, at war with it.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will act like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.

In fact, of course, there is no secret knowledge; no one knows anything that can’t be found on a shelf in the public library.

We don’t need prophets to tell us how to live; we can find out for ourselves by consulting what’s actually there.

The problem is that man’s conquest of the world has itself devastated the world.

It’s pointless to argue with mythology.