Quote

To pretend that civilization can exist without destroying its own landbase and the landbases and cultures of others is to be entirely ignorant of history, biology, thermodynamics, morality, and self-preservation.

Derrick Jensen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Derrick Jensen
Age: 63
Born: 1960
Born: December 19
Author
Environmentalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Writer
Others
Pretend
Without
Entirely
Self
Ignorant
Morality
Thermodynamics
Exist
Preservation
Civilization
Biology
History
Cultures
Culture
Destroying

More quotes by Derrick Jensen

Image
All we want, whether we are honeybees, salmon, trash-collecting ants, ponderosa pines, coyotes, human beings, or stars, is to love and be loved, to be accepted, cherished, and celebrated simply for being who we are. Is that so very difficult?
Derrick Jensen
Image
Like the layers of an onion, under the first lie is another, and under that another, and they all make you cry.
Derrick Jensen
Image
If you only had a limited time to life (which is of course the case), how would you spend your time?
Derrick Jensen
Image
For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.
Derrick Jensen
Image
I wondered what it does to each of us to spend the majority of our waking hours doings things we'd rather not do, wishing we were outside or simply elsewhere, wishing we were reading, thinking, making love, fishing, sleeping, or simply having time to figure out who the hell we are and what the hell we're doing.
Derrick Jensen
Image
Surely by now there can be few here who still believe the purpose of government is to protect us from the destructive activities of corporations. At last most of us must understand that the opposite is true: that the primary purpose of government is to protect those who run the economy from the outrage of injured citizens.
Derrick Jensen
Image
Learning has to come from doing, not intellectualizing.
Derrick Jensen
Image
We must learn how to think like the planet.
Derrick Jensen
Image
To believe Christianity stands in opposition to slavery is at best to think anachronistically and at worst to not understand Christianity.
Derrick Jensen
Image
There is a language older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of bodies, of body on body, wind on snow, rain on trees, wave on stone. It is the language of dream, gesture, symbol, memory. We have forgotten this language. We do not even remember that it exists.
Derrick Jensen
Image
If any thing can be predicated as universally true of uncultivated man, it is that he will not labour beyond what is absolutely necessary to maintain his existence.
Derrick Jensen
Image
All the mega corporations on the planet make their obscene profits off the labor and suffering of others, with complete disregard for the effects on the workers, environment, and future generations. We have a straightforward proposal: if they want public money, we want public control. It's that simple.
Derrick Jensen
Image
The stories we are told shape the way we see the world, which shapes the way we experience the world.
Derrick Jensen
Image
I've since come to understand the reason school lasts thirteen years. It takes that long to sufficiently break a child's will. It is not easy to disconnect children's wills, to disconnect them from their own experiences of the world in preparation for the lives of painful employment they will have to endure.
Derrick Jensen
Image
We cannot hope to create a sustainable culture with any but sustainable souls.
Derrick Jensen
Image
I think a lot of us are increasingly recognizing that the dominant culture is killing the planet.
Derrick Jensen
Image
We have a need for enchantment that is as deep and devoted as our need for food and water.
Derrick Jensen
Image
The process of schooling does not give birth to human beings - as education should but never will so long as it springs from the collective consciousness of our culture - but instead it teaches us to value abstract rewards at the expense of our autonomy, curiosity, interior lives, and time.
Derrick Jensen
Image
From the beginning, this culture - civilization - has been a culture of occupation.
Derrick Jensen
Image
I think it's very important for us to start to build a culture of resistance, because what we're doing isn't working, clearly.
Derrick Jensen