Daniel Quinn

Mankind was not needed to bring order to the world.

All paths lie together like a web endlessly woven, and yours and mine are no greater or less than the beetle’s or the mouse’s. All are held together.

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

Any culture will become an obscenity when blown up into a universal world culture to which all must belong.

The world was not made for any one species.

I asked, “Is it so easy to change a cultural vision.”

“The relevant measures are not ease and difficulty. The relevant measures are readiness and unreadiness. If the time isn’t right for a new idea, no power on earth can make it catch on, but if the time is right, it will sweep the world like wildfire.

You don’t have to understand what you see but you must at least make an effort to see what you see.

If the world is saved, it will not be saved by people with the old vision and new programs. If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with a new vision and no programs.

What appears to be kind and is meant to be kind can be the reverse of kind.

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.