Ishmael Quotes
"Man’s destiny was to conquer and rule the world, and this is what he’s done—almost."
"In order to become fully human, man had to pull himself out of the slime."
"The world was made for man to conquer and rule, but his conquest turned out to be more destructive than was anticipated."
"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."
"If you want to understand the habits of bees, you study bees, you don’t study mountain–building."
"Man is part of a community, upon which he depends absolutely."
"No one species shall make the life of the world its own."
"The Takers are a profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory."
"Culture is a mother everywhere and at every time, because culture is inherently a nurturer."
"Every increase in food production to feed an increased population is answered by another increase in population."
"Your life is wretched and squalid and shameful because you live like animals."
"We take what we need from the world and leave the rest alone, just as the lion and the deer do."
"Living that way... you have no control over your lives."
"You have no control over the most basic necessity of all, your food supply."
"When we’re hungry, we go off and find something to eat. What more control is needed?"
"The whole world of life is food... It’s always there, day after day, season after season."
"Among my people, when we want a yam, we simply go and dig one up."
"Unless you control your own food supply, you live at the mercy of the world."
"You die because you live at the mercy of the gods. You die because you think the gods are going to look after you."
"You should trust yourselves with your lives. That’s the human way to live."
"You can’t live at the whim of the gods. That’s just not a human way to live."
"The gods make no distinction between you and any other creature."
"What the gods provide is enough for your life as animals—but for your life as humans, you must provide."
"Man lived in the hands of the gods for three million years and at the end of those three million years was no better off."
"When you have more food than you need, then the gods have no power over you."
"Breaking out of the Taker prison is a common cause to which all humanity can subscribe."
"The Leaver life-style isn’t about hunting and gathering, it’s about letting the rest of the community live."
"Your task is not to reach back but to reach forward."
"The world doesn’t need to belong to man—but it does need man to belong to it."
"Man’s place is to figure out how it’s possible to do that—and then to make some room for all the rest."
"How can civilized people belong to the world?"
"The creatures who act as though they belong to the world follow the peace-keeping law."
"The distribution of wealth and power inside the prison has nothing to do with justice."
"The Takers have to put an end to creation itself—and they’re doing a damned good job of it."
"WITH MAN GONE, WILL THERE BE HOPE FOR GORILLA?"
"WITH GORILLA GONE, WILL THERE BE HOPE FOR MAN?"