201 Quotes by Daniel Quinn

Human thought is thought that opens up into the future, and the future is inescapably the domain of the gods.

And if being civilized means anything at all, it should mean you’re the leaders of the club, not its only criminals and destroyers.

What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it, written as well as you, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself – and thus make yourself indispensable.

And in spite of all the mastery we’ve attained, we don’t have enough mastery to stop devastating the world, or to repair the devastation we’ve already wrought.

The tribal life doesn’t turn people into saints; it enables ordinary people to make a living together with a minimum of stress year after year, generation after generation.

You must absolutely and forever relinquish the idea that you know who should live and who should die on this planet.

To a mind ready for mythology, he was the beginning of what is meant by godlike.

Where are you looking at it from?” “Oh. From above. From outer space.” “What are you doing up there?” “I don’t know.” “Why aren’t you down on the surface?

We went wrong by failing to take into account a great truth, namely, that teals are stupid and lazy and perfectly content to stay that way.