# Quote — Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

> No one thought about what kind of society we were building with such stupid decisions. People who could afford to educate their children in private schools were glad to see the government finally stop wasting their tax money, educating other people’s children. They seemed to think they lived on Mars. They imagined that a country filled with poor, uneducated, unemployable people somehow wouldn’t hurt them!

- Author: [Octavia E. Butler](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler.md)
- Book: [Parable of the Talents](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-talents.md)
- Page: 404
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Octavia_Butler#Parable_of_the_Talents_(1998)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-talents/no-one-thought

## More from this book

> Consider—
>
> We are born
>
> Not with purpose,
>
> But with potential.

p. 1 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-talents/consider-we-are.md)

> Beware:
>
> Ignorance
>
> Protects itself
>
> Ignorance
>
> Promotes suspicion.
>
> Suspicion
>
> Engenders fear.
>
> Fear quails,
>
> Irrational and blind,
>
> Or fear looms,
>
> Defiant and closed.
>
> Blind, closed,
>
> Suspicious, afraid,
>
> Ignorance
>
> Protects itself,
>
> And protected,
>
> Ignorance grows.

p. 225 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-talents/beware-ignorance-protects.md)

> “I’m not a demagogue.”
>
> “That’s too bad. That leaves the field to people who are demagogues—to the Jarrets of the world. And there have always been Jarrets. Probably there always will be.”

p. 395 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-talents/im-not-a-demagogue.md)