Daniel Quinn Quotes

Best Quotes by Daniel Quinn (Top 10)

There is no one right way to live.
Daniel Quinn
If the world is saved, it will not be saved by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all.
Daniel Quinn
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.
Daniel Quinn
The premise of the Taker story is 'the world belongs to man'. … The premise of the Leaver story is 'man belongs to the world'.
Daniel Quinn
Everyone in your culture knows this. Man was born to turn the world into paradise, but tragically he was born flawed. And so his paradise has always been spoiled by stupidty, greed, destructiveness, and shortsightedness.
Daniel Quinn
It's the idea that people living close to nature tend to be noble. It's seeing all those sunsets that does it. You can't watch a sunset and then go off and set fire to your neighbor's tepee. Living close to nature is wonderful for your mental health.
Daniel Quinn
You're captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live. … You are captivesâand you have made a captive of the world itself. That's what's at stake, isn't it?âyour captivity and the captivity of the world.
Daniel Quinn
Do you see the slightest evidence anywhere in the universe that creation came to an end with the birth of man? Do you see the slightest evidence anywhere out there that man was the climax toward which creation had been straining from the beginning? ...Very far from it. The universe went on as before, the planet went on as before. Man's appearance caused no more stir than the appearance of jellyfish.
Daniel Quinn
The world doesn't belong to us, we belong to it. Always have, always will. We belong to the world. We belong to the community of life on this planet—it doesn't belong to us. We got confused about that, now it's time to set the record straight
Daniel Quinn
But we're not humanity, we're just one culture - one culture out of hundreds of thousands that have lived their vision on this planet and sung their song. If it were humanity that needed changing, then we'd be out of luck. But it isn't humanity that needs changing, it's just...us.
Daniel Quinn

More Daniel Quinn Quotes

Man's destiny was to conquer and rule the world, and this is what he's done.. almost. He hasn't quite made it, and it looks as though this may be his undoing. The problem is that man's conquest of the world has itself devastated the world. 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.
Daniel Quinn
[A]ny species that exempts itself from the rules of competition ends up destroying the community in order to support its own expansion.
Daniel Quinn
No one species shall make the life of the world its own.' … That's one expression of the law. Here's another: 'The world was not made for any one species.
Daniel Quinn
And every time the Takers stamp out a Leaver culture, a wisdom ultimately tested since the birth of mankind disappears from the world beyond recall.
Daniel Quinn
To you, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism look very different, but to me they look the same. Many of you would say that something like Buddhism doesn't even belong on the list, since it doesn't link salvation to divine worship, but to me this is just a quibble. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all perceive human beings as flawed, wounded creatures in need of salvation, and all rely fundamentally on revelations that spell out how salvation is to be attained, either by departing from this life or rising above it.
Daniel Quinn
TEACHER seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.
Daniel Quinn
Blessed are those who do whatever they can wherever they are, for no one is devoid of resources or opportunities.
Daniel Quinn
The people of your culture cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man. They want desperately to perceive a vast gulf between man and the rest of creation. This mythology of human superiority justifies their doing whatever they please with the world, just the way Hitler’s mythology of Aryan superiority justified his doing whatever he pleased with Europe. But in the end this mythology is not deeply satisfying. The Takers are a profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory, and they live in it like an army of occupation, alienated and isolated by their extraordinary specialness.
Daniel Quinn