Following are some poignant quotes that might be considered a backdrop for our Cosmically Adequate (CA) consideration/pursuit/exploration:
- R. Buckminster Fuller 45 quotes
Daniel Quinn 37 quotes
Alex Gerber 22 quotes
Mary Baker Eddy 20 quotes
David Brower 14 quotes
Jean Liedloff 10 quotes - Robert Fritz 6 quotes
Alan Weisman 5 quotes - Pete Carroll 4 quotes
John Perkins 4 quotes - Robert Pirsig 3 quotes
- Zig Ziggler 3 quotes
- Steven Covey 2 quotes
- Various 1 quote each – example:
J Krishnamurti 1 quote
“It is no measure of good health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
R. Buckminster Fuller (Bucky) 45 quotes
1. “To be optimally effective, undertake at outset the most comprehensive task in the most comprehensive and incisively detailed manner.” Intuition
2. “All animals, except man, adapt to their environment. Man changes his environment, making it adapt to him.” I Seem to Be A Verb
3. “You never can catch universe unaware, not ready.” The 50 Year Experiment—New Dimensions recording, 1980
4. “Universe never said, ‘I don’t know what to do about that.’” The 50 Year Experiment—New Dimensions recording, 1980
5. “Humanity is now maintaining an unstable collection of local holding patterns, awaiting a physical or metaphysical integrity to give structure to the future and to show the way out of the darkness. The twentieth century’s leap into a realm with a million times greater range of reality, produced by the sudden visibility and employability of the total electromagnetic spectrum, has brought humans to the edge of self-extinction for lack of adequate guiding forces. Big business and big religion’s inclination for moneymaking and power has served only to foster the continuance of a millennium of isolation, inhumanity, misinformation, and ignorance. Cosmography
6. “We now have available to each of us the comprehensive information that can lead us out of the Dark Ages, which continue to hold us down with physical and moral barriers to the free flow of the information and materials that would spontaneously liberate us. The old structures were prejudicial human physical-power structures. The adamantine new structure is metaphysical, pristine, eternal, a generalized system of pure principle.” Cosmography
7. “The game called money is about to become extinct. Advantaged by the computer’s capability to inventory, permutate, and reevidence all relevant metabolic information, humanity is about to discover that whatever it needs to do and knows how to do it can always afford to do and that that in fact is only and all it can afford to do. Comprehension of the practicality of realizing the truths is what humanity needs to acquire. The truth is that if it knows its universal resource inventory, if it knows where the resources are, if it knows its technology, if it knows what it needs to do to take adequate care of all people everywhere, humanity needs no money. It needs physical and metaphysical accounting. The data is now at hand. Cosmically speaking physics recognizes that no energy as chemical element matter or as electromagnetic radiation or as gravity can get lost so the physical content of wealth cannot diminish.” And It Came to Pass—Not to Stay
8. “If man chooses oblivion, he can go right on leaving his fate to his political leaders. If he chooses utopia, he must initiate an enormous educational program—immediately, if not sooner.” I Seem to Be A Verb
9. “…when humanity today is presented with the option of across-the-board success, it is so specialized as to be unable to recognize this generalized, only comprehensively discoverable and comprehendible course of action to be implemented by an invisible technology.” Cosmography
10. “Humanity was given an enormous range of resources with which to discover that our minds are everything and our muscles are relatively nothing. We note that hydrogen does not have to “earn a living” before behaving like a hydrogen atom. Humans, in fact, are the only phenomenon upon which the power structure has been able to impose the everyday obligation of satisfactorily ‘earning a living.’” Cosmography
11. “Because of high technology’s capability to take care of the needs of everybody on the planet, we now know that the prerequisite of having to earn a living is obsolete.” Cosmography
12. “All humanity’s reflexing is yet so ill-conditioned by years of optical illusion, self-deception and general education-dispensed-misinformation, that it goes right on coddling its own ignorance as well as overwhelming its children with the inventory of formally tolerated errors, thus perpetuating and increasing the polluted information.” Earth, Inc.
13. “Around the world nothing has ever been formally instituted in our educational systems to gear the human senses into spontaneous accord with our scientific knowledge. In fact, much has been done and much has been left undone by powerful world institutions that prevent such reorientation of our misconditioned reflexes. Our own misconditioned reflexes are powerful deterrents to our successful self-reorientation of our apprehending faculties to accord with the emerging truths.” Critical Path
14. “Up to the twentieth century, ‘reality’ was everything humans could touch, smell, see, and hear. Since the initial publication of the chart of the electromagnetic spectrum in 1930, humans have learned that what they can touch, smell, see, and here is less than one-millionth of reality. Ninety-nine percent of all that is going to affect our tomorrows is being developed by humans using instruments working in the ranges of reality that are non-humanly sensible.” R. Buckminster Fuller on Education
15. “… We must realize that we have all reached a turning point where we can no longer afford to make money rather than good sense.” Cosmography
16. “Synergy is the companion word to the word energy. Synergy means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of any of the parts. It is the only word that means it. The fact that we are unfamiliar with the word means that we do not think there are behaviors of wholes unpredicted by parts.” Autobiographical Monologue Scenario
17. “… It became evident that the individual was the only one that could deliberately find the time to think in a cosmically adequate manner.” Autobiographical Monologue Scenario
18. “Humans are coming swiftly to understand they must now consciously begin to operate their space vehicle Earth with total planetary cooperation, competence, and integrity. Humans are swiftly sensing that the cushioning tolerance for their initial error has become approximately exhausted.” Earth, Inc.
19. “How much courage and integrity does each of us have individually to steer a life course according to what our minds have learned through experimental evidence to be the relevant principles governing our situation? How much ingenuity do we have to solve the larger problems of society through anticipatory design rather than through outmoded intuitions based on misinformation and the maintenance of the status quo for the vested interests?” Earth, Inc.
20. “I have discovered that we have just such and option. How much courage does each of us have to take the first active step leading to the exercise of that option? What is it that each of us must do? How much willpower must we gather to cast aside deeply ingrained patterns and prejudices? How far must we go to make consciously considerate decisions based on intellectual integrity? How much faith must we have in our ability to recognize that intellectual integrity? Or, by default, will the unconscious crowd-following mass psychology of the Dark Ages rein supreme for another aeon?” Cosmography
21. “The present evolutionary crisis of humans on planet Earth is that of a final examination for their continuance in Universe. It is not an examination of political, economic, or religious systems, but of the integrity of each and all individual humans’ responsible thinking and unselfish response to the acceleration in evolution’s ever more unprecedented events.” Cosmography
22. “A design revolution is the application of our highest technological capabilities to enable all humanity to live sustainably at an unprecedentedly higher standard of living than has ever been experienced by any. And it can be accomplished while phasing out future use of fossil fuel (‘savings account energy’) and atomic energy, and living entirely on Sun-derived (‘income’) energy.” Cosmography
23. “. . . If humans do pass their cosmic exam as local Universe problem solvers and continue on the planet, there will be no thought whatsoever of earning a living. There will be no thoughts of even such words as business competition, money, or lies, for such phenomena will become extinct. Such words as politics, war, weapons, and debt will only be of historical significance.” Cosmography
24. “. . . It does not have to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary. War is obsolete.” EastWest Journal; January 1982
25. “A new, physically uncompromised, metaphysical initiative of unbiased integrity could unify the world.” Operating Manual for SpaceShip Earth
26. “We have talked a great deal about the great mystery of being here. But the majority of our public talking revolves around the egotistical assumption that human politics and the wealthy are running the Universe, that the macrocosmic spectaculars are an amusement accessory of our all-important selfish preoccupations, and that the Universe’s microcosmic invisibles are exclusively for corporation stockholders’ moneymaking exploitation. Individuals’ discoveries or inventions are industrially developed only when funded by great corporations and usually only after being initially capitalized, produced and developed by humanity’s taxes-paid military defense expenditures with all production rights eventually being transferred gratis to prime contractor corporations.” Operating Manual for SpaceShip Earth
27. “The human intellect has gradually discovered a number of extraordinary generalized (which means exceptionless, eternal) principles that are only mathematically expressible. These principles govern the behavior of invisible interrelationships that are incomprehensible by the brain-monitored senses. We know of no phenomenon other than the human mind that has access to and comprehension of the design laws of the Universe such as the Kepler, Galileo, and Newton-evolved discovery that the interattraction of any two celestial bodies varies inversely as the second power of the distance between them varies. …
a. We must now think realistically and comprehensively about now and why we are here with this extraordinary capability of the mind. There is no evidence to suggest that our remaining here on Earth is a matter of cosmic necessity to witness fallacies of Earthian economic or political systems. Nor are we here to amuse or inspire the planets with sports systems, religious systems, or any mystical-orientation systems. On the other hand, our survival on the planet rests entirely on the fact that each and every individual human being has been given individual access to this extraordinary thinking faculty. The present worldwide crisis powerfully suggests that we all are undergoing a final examination as to whether to bomb ourselves into oblivion, overcrowd a despoiled planet or let our minds take command and exercise our design science option and turn the human occupants of planet Earth into a success. If all humanity as a cosmic invention is to pass this final exam successfully, it would seem logically probable that a large majority of all Earthian thinking individuals make the decision of intellectual integrity and pass the test on behalf of the ill-informed minority.
b. My own working assumption is that we are here as local-Universe information gatherers. We are given access to the divine design principles so that from them we can invent objectively the instruments and tools that qualify us as local Universe problem solvers in support of the integrity of an eternally regenerative Universe.” Critical Path
28. “At this critical moment, weapons, muscle and cunning are in control of human affairs. Unless the human mind takes control, it is probably curtains for us all.” from essay: Experiment in Individual Initiative published in New Jersey Bell Journal, Summer 1982
29. “I am the opposite of a reformer; I am what I call a new former. The new form must be spontaneously complimentary to the innate faculties and capabilities of life. I am quite confident that humanity is born with its total intellectual capability already on inventory and that human beings do not add anything to any other human being in the way of faculties and capacities. What usually happens in the educational process is that the faculties are dulled, overloaded, stuffed and paralyzed, so that by the time that most people are mature they have lost use of many of their innate capabilities.” Education Automation
30. “Comprehension of the practicality of realizing the truths is what humanity needs to acquire. The truth is that if it knows its universal resource inventory, if it knows where the resources are, if it knows its technology, if it knows what it needs to do to take adequate care of all people everywhere, humanity needs no money. It needs physical and metaphysical accounting.” And it Came to Pass—Not to Stay
31. “. . . given the right environment and thoughtful answers to his questions, children have everything they need educationally right from birth. If we design the environment properly, it will permit children and adults to develop safely and to behave logically.” On Education
32. “When you get into politics, you are very liable to get into war. War is the ultimate tool of politics.” On Education
33. “Man is born utterly helpless and remains utterly helpless for a longer period than the newborn of any other living species. … In many ways, mankind is utterly helpless, vain, and ignorant.” Utopia or Oblivion
34. “Human beings often say, ‘I wonder what it would feel like to be on a spaceship.’ The answer is, ‘What does it feel like—you are and always have been on a very small spaceship, eight thousand miles in diameter.’ … And this spaceship is designed so superbly, all its passengers so skillfully provided for, that they have been on board playing the game of self-reproduction for two million years without even realizing that they are on board a spaceship. … I find all life interconnectedly successful and almost completely unwitting of the total ecological balance, which men sometimes speak of as ‘nature.’” Utopia or Oblivion
35. “… chemical elements never become secondhand or shopworn. All that is needed is energy and know-how to free them in pristine purity for further tasks.” Utopia or Oblivion
36. “Human beings, as designed, are obviously intended to be a success just as the hydrogen atom is designed to be a success.” On Education
37. “All politics are obsolete as fundamental problem solvers. Politics are only adequate for secondary housekeeping tasks. Mankind must take the universal initiative in effecting the design revolution.” Utopia or Oblivion
38. “Essence of the world’s working will be to make every man able to become a world citizen and able to enjoy the whole earth, going wherever he wants at any time, able to take care of all the needs of all his forward days without any interference with any other man and never at the cost of another man’s equal freedom and advantage. I think that the communication problem—of “How to Make the World Work”—will become extremely popular the world around.” Utopia or Oblivion
39. “I saw that there was nothing to stop me from thinking about our total planet Earth and thinking realistically about how to operate it on an enduringly sustainable basis as the magnificent human-passengered spaceship that it is.” Guinea Pig B
40. “I also saw that there was nothing to stop me from thinking about the total physical resources we have now discovered aboard our ship and about how to use the total cumulative know-how to make this ship work for everybody paying absolutely no attention to the survival problems of any separate nations or any other individual groupings of humans, and assuming only one goal: the omni-physically successful, spontaneous self-integration of all humanity into what I called in 1927 ‘a one-town world.’” Guinea Pig B
41. “How do we induce humanity to teach itself that a design revolution is completely different from a political revolution? The latter vengefully pulls the top down. A design revolution would elevate the bottom, and all the others, to sustainable standards of living higher than the top has ever experienced.” Learning Tomorrow's (article)
42. “I am o’erwhelmed by the only experientially discovered evidence of an a priori eternal, omnicomprehensive, infinitely and exquisitely concerned, intellectual integrity that we may call God, through knowing that in whatever way we humans refer to this integrity it will always be an inadequate expression of its cosmic omniscience and omnipotence.” Critical Path
43. “Once humanity has the right information, it’s going to make some very good decisions … .” Fuller’s Earth
44. “Why are our problems so resistant to solutions? Why does it take so long for us to make use of our discoveries?” Answer : “ Our perceptions of the world are inaccurate and our brains are saddled with the weight of misconceptions.” Play: R. Buckminster Fuller; The History and Mystery of Universe
45. “The truth is that if [humanity] knows its universal resource inventory, if it knows where the resources are, if it knows its technology, if it knows what it needs to do to take adequate care of all people everywhere, humanity needs no money. It needs physical and metaphysical accounting.” Play: R. Buckminster Fuller; The History and Mystery of Universe
Daniel Quinn 37 quotes
1. “It’s a waste of time to try to make a dysfunctional design work by improving its parts.” Beyond Civilization
2. “… the flaw in our civilization isn’t in the people, it’s in the system. ” Beyond Civilization
3. “When one does not see what one does not see, one does not even see that one is blind.” (A quote from Paul Veyne on page 1) Story of B
4. “There are some teachings that only exceptional students can handle.” Story of B
5. “Arts and disciplines of that kind (sorcery, the zen of …, meditation, chakra alignment, past incarnations, etc.) are fundamentally selfish; they’re all designed to benefit the pupil—not the world.” Ishmael
6. (Ishmael—failing with his only 4 students) “I failed because I underestimated the difficultly of what I was trying to teach—and because I didn’t understand the minds of my pupils well enough.” Ishmael
7. “You’re captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live.” Ishmael
8. “We’re packing a bag for our journey together. I’m going to throw into this bag some things I won’t want to stop and pick up later on. These things will mean little or nothing to you right now. I’ll just show them to you briefly and then toss them into the bag. That way you’ll recognize them when I take them out later on.” Ishmael
9. “The journey itself is going to change you, so you don’t have to worry about memorizing the route we took to accomplish that change.” Ishmael
10. (our cultures’ folly) “Now the first two parts of the story have come together: The world was made for man, and man was made to conquer and rule it.” Ishmael
11. “The early aeronauts had to proceed by trial and error, because they didn’t know the laws of aerodynamics—didn’t even know there were laws. … The people of your culture are in the same condition when it comes to learning how they ought to live. They have to proceed by trial and error, because they don’t know the relevant laws—and don’t even know that there are laws.” Ishmael
12. “Can you think of any laws at all from which humans are exempt? … When you want to fly, the laws governing flight become relevant.” Ishmael
13. “It [a “universal” law] makes no distinction between human civilizations and beehives. It applies to all species without distinction. This is one reason why the law has remained undiscovered in your culture. According to Taker mythology, man is by definition a biological exception. Out of all the millions of species, only one is an end product. The world wasn’t made to produce frogs or katydids or sharks or grasshoppers. It was made to produce man. Man therefore stands alone, unique and infinitely apart from all the rest.” Ishmael
14. “Every law has effects or it wouldn’t be discoverable as a law. The effects of the law we’re looking for are very simple. Species that live in compliance with the law live forever—environmental conditions permitting. This will, I hope, be taken as good news for mankind in general, because if mankind lives in compliance with this law, then it too will live forever—or for as long as conditions permit. But of course this isn’t the law’s only effect. Those species that do not live in compliance with the law become extinct. In the scale of biological time, they become extinct very rapidly. And this is going to be very bad news for the people of your culture— the worst they’ve ever heard.” Ishmael
15. “A law is in operation, and my task is to show you how it operates. At this point, the easiest way to show you how it operates is by analogy with laws you already know—the law of gravity and the laws of aerodynamics. … The laws of aerodynamics don’t provide us with a way of defying the law of gravity. … They simply provide us with a way of using the air as a support.” Ishmael
16. “I don’t think you can start wanting something till you know it exists.” Ishmael
17. “… people need more than to be scolded, more than to be made to feel stupid and guilty. They need more than a vision of doom. They need a vision of the world and of themselves that inspires them.” Ishmael
18. “… it should be noted that what is crucial to your survival as a race is not the redistribution of power and wealth within the prison but rather the destruction of the prison itself.” Ishmael
19. “Both (Ishmael and Quinn’s dream) tell him this community is in need of help—and that this help can only come from someone privy to secrets unknown to his fellow humans. Both invite him to take a journey of discovery that will alienate him from his human family and friends. Providence
20. “… to nominate consciousness as something grander than all the rest is just more of the usual anthropocentric nonsense. . . . . We must give every species the time and room to reach whatever potential it possesses. ” Providence
21. “Take a look at this and this and this and this. Now, having done so, don’t you find the following conclusion to be irresistible?” Providence
22. “It’s seldom possible for me simply to open my mouth and say the things that are on my mind. Rather, I must begin by laying the groundwork for ideas that are obvious to me but fundamentally alien to my listeners.” Story of B
23. “Forget yourselves for a while, because the world is in dire need of your attention. For a while stop looking for ways to enhance your inner life and start looking instead for ways to ensure that—twenty years from now, fifty years from now—our children and grandchildren will have a decent world to grow up in.” Providence
24. “Rather than a pyramid, I’m constructing a mosaic. The pieces can be added in any order. In the early stages, there’s nothing like an image, but as pieces are added, an image begins to emerge.” Story of B
25. “Remember that we’re working on a mosaic, not a narrative or a syllogism. After this conversation, you still won’t have a conclusion, but you should have a more complete understanding of everything you’ve ever heard me say.” Story of B
26. “Pursuing an evolutionarily unstable strategy doesn’t eliminate you instantly, it eliminates you eventually.” Story of B
27. “Our lifestyle is evolutionarily unstable—and is therefore in the process of eliminating itself in the perfectly ordinary way.” Story of B
28. “It means I’ve been changed, fundamentally and permanently. It means I cannot be put back to what I was.” Story of B
29. “That the earth is the motionless center of the universe was an idea that people accepted for thousands of years. In itself, it seems harmless enough, but it spawned a thousand errors and put a limit on what we could understand about the universe.” Story of B
30. “Good lord, this is gibberish. I see that now.” Providence
31. “Thinkers aren’t limited by what they know, because they can always increase what they know. Rather they’re limited by what puzzles them, because there’s no way to become curious about something that doesn’t puzzle you. If a thing falls outside the range of people’s curiosity, then they simply cannot make inquiries about it. It constitutes a blind spot—a spot of blindness that you can’t even know is there until someone draws your attention to it.” My Ishmael
32. “Archaeology and history tell a tale five thousand years long of one Taker society after another groping for something to placate and inspire, something to amuse and distract, something to make people forget a misery that for some strange reason simply will not go away. Festivals, revels, pageants, temple solemnities, pomp and circumstance, bread and circuses, the ever-present hope of attaining power, riches, and luxury, games, dramas, contests, sports, wars, crusades, political intrigue, knightly quests, world exploration, honors, titles, alcohol, drugs, gambling, prostitution, opera, theater, the arts, government, politics, careers, political advantage, mountain climbing, radio, television, movies, show business, video games, computers, the information superhighway, money, pornography, the conquest of space—something here for everyone, surely, something to make life seem worth living, something to fill the vacancy, something to inspire and console, and of course it did fill the vacancy for many of you.” My Ishmael
33. “When six billion of you refuse to teach your children how to be prisoners of Taker culture, this awful dream of yours will be over—in a single generation. It can only continue for as long as you perpetuate it. Your culture has no independent existence—no existence outside of you—and if you cease to perpetuate it, then it will vanish. Must vanish, like a flame with nothing to feed on.” “Yeah, but what would happen then? You can’t just stop teaching your children anything, can you?” “Of course not, Julie. You can’t just stop teaching them anything. Rather, you must teach them something new. And if you’re going to teach them something new, then of course you must first learn something new yourself.” My Ishmael
34. “… you can't demand this (the wealth we need) of your leaders. Your leaders aren't withholding it. They don't have it to give to you.” My Ishmael
35. “It is my bizarre theory, Julie, that the people of your culture are destroying the world not because they’re vicious or stupid, as Mother Culture teaches, but because they’re terribly, terribly deprived—of things that humans absolutely must have, simply cannot go on living without year after year and generation after generation. It’s my bizarre theory that, given a choice between destroying the world and having the things they really, deeply want, they’ll choose the latter. But before they can make that choice, they must see that choice.” My Ishmael
36. “The children’s revolt of the sixties and seventies failed because it had neither a theory nor a program. But they were certainly right about one thing: It’s time for something new for you people. You must have a revolution if you’re going to survive. . . . Any revolution that depends on people voluntarily giving up things they want for things they don’t want is mere utopianism and will fail. You must have a positive revolution, a revolution that brings people more of what they really want, not less of what they don’t really want. … If you want them to lose interest in toys, then you must give them something even better than toys.” “That must be the watchword of your revolution, Julie—not voluntary poverty, but rather voluntary wealth. But real wealth this time. Not toys, not gadgets, not ‘amenities.’ Not stuff you can put in bank vaults. Real wealth of the kind that humans were born with. Real wealth of the kind that humans enjoyed here for hundreds of thousands of years—and continue to enjoy wherever the Leaver life is still intact. And this is wealth you can enjoy without feeling guilty, because it isn’t something stolen from the world.” My Ishmael
37. “Nothing less than a world of changed minds is going to save you—and changing minds is something every single one of you can do, no matter who you are or how you’re situated. I told Alan to reach a hundred, but to tell the truth I was getting a little impatient with him. Of course there’s nothing wrong with reaching a hundred, but if you can’t reach a hundred, then reach ten. And if you can’t reach ten, then reach one—because that one may reach a million.” My Ishmael
Alex Gerber (all quoted from Wholeness) 22 quotes
1. “. . . wholeness is more than a story; it is the actual reality.”
2. “Although undefinable and enigmatic, the whole can be felt or intuited, and some of its attributes and manifestations can be observed. We can perceive its signs and messages but we must still learn how to read them. This is the process of awakening to wholeness. As holistic realities are illuminated, this awareness can help each of us become ‘optimally effective’ in environmental, educational, and all other endeavors, including the “comprehensive task” of discerning among the multitude of competing advice and belief systems.”
3. “If our goal is to be optimally effective in resolving humanity’s most urgent environmental challenges—as well as social and education issues—what is the most comprehensive task?”
4. “Ultimately, these problems appear as different facets of one single crisis, which is a crisis of perception and values.” (quoted from Fritjof Capra’s The Elmwood Newsletter, Spring 1989)
5. “… how do holistic principles address practical issues? They do so by repackaging all issues comprehensively, from the whole to the particulars. Since this approach does not operate from an oppositional mindset, it transcends ideology and encompasses the big picture. It is both non-combative and uncombatable. It is nonpartisan because it implies a viewpoint that includes every viewpoint.”
6. “Paradoxically one needs to see value in the whole in order to have a holistic attitude, yet it’s the attitude in the first place that leads one to value the whole. This is a situation in which intuition and conscious decision are called for.”
7. “Taking the parts-to-whole approach, in contrast, we never reach the whole because we become mired in the infinitude of parts.”
8. “Intuition can help us find our way through the brambles of fragmentation and cognitive discord. Unfortunately some people mistake deranged thought for intuition, providing an excuse for just about anything (including acts of terrorism). Therefore, to be useful, intuition must be unclouded, informed, and sensibly interpreted. Who is to be the judge of these factors? Learning about and experiencing wholeness can lead to personal clarity.”
9. “As we learn about the whole, we become more conscious of our available choices and less prone to being manipulated. Holism is not just another philosophy among many. As stated earlier, it is a metaphilosophy that can be used as a tool for discerning all philosophies, and everything else.”
10. “A primary assumption underlying Buckminster Fuller’s philosophy is that Earth is here for all. For more that 55 years, he explored the world holistically and taught about his discoveries.”
11. “Nature employs the most efficient, optimized designs.”
12. “Generalized principles are “the synergetic rules that evolution is employing and trying to make clear to us.”
13. “. . . it does not make sense to investigate holistic subject matter from the reductionist point of view.”
14. “Awakening to wholeness enhances a person’s ability to perceive what is, those who ignore the reality of the whole either lack education on the ‘subject’ or, for whatever reason, refuse to allow it.”
15. “Recognizing our personal connection with the whole brings with it the understanding that the potential for this same recognition exists in everyone.”
16. “To answer these questions and to evaluate the many available “truths,” a high level of discernment is required.”
17. “We need a validated, usable system of human values, values that we can believe in and devote ourselves to because they are true rather than because we are exhorted to ‘believe and have faith’” (quoted from Abraham H. Maslow’s Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences)
18. “Due to the nature of holism and synergy, it would be extremely inefficient to establish holistic policies in one area of life without simultaneously addressing all other areas, since all are interconnected.”
19. “When more people are holistically educated, it will be easier to agree on what constitutes ‘well-being.’”
20. “My suggestion is that a proper world view, appropriate for its time, is generally one of the basic factors that is essential for harmony in the individual and in society as a whole.” (quoted from David Bohm’s Wholeness and the Implicate Order)
21. “World society has not yet evolved an appropriate understanding of how to coexist with the planet and with itself. We perpetuate an economic system predicated on dismantling the very environment upon which we all depend. This system encourages and amplifies the worst character traits of human beings and in our ignorance, we have reached the point where Earth’s life-support capabilities are endangered. At the top of the food chain, humans have become the ultimate predator—some purposefully, others unconsciously by default, merely trying to survive.”
22. “Consciousness can enable one to transcend outmoded biological and psychological ‘imperatives.’”
Mary Baker Eddy (all quoted from Science and Health, except where noted) 20 quotes
1. “… unwillingness to learn all things rightly, binds [true progress] with chains.”
2. “Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action.”
3. “Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is asleep in the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours. Material sense does not unfold the facts of existence; but spiritual sense lifts human consciousness into eternal Truth. Humanity advances slowly out of sinning sense into spiritual understanding;”
4. “The objects we pursue and the spirit we manifest, reveal our standpoint and show what we are winning.”
5. “Truth is never contaminated by error.”
6. “Deducing one's conclusions as to man from imperfection instead of perfection, one can no more arrive at the true conception or understanding of man, and make himself like it, than the sculptor can perfect his outlines from an imperfect model, or the painter can depict the form and face of Jesus, while holding in thought the character of Judas.”
7. “The way to escape the misery of sin is to cease sinning.”
8. “Science [in this instance she is specifically referring to “Christian Science,” the religion she founded] relates to Mind, not matter. It rests on fixed Principle and not upon the judgment of false sensation.”
9. “The addition of two sums in mathematics must always bring the same result. So it is with logic. If both the major and the minor propositions of a syllogism are correct the conclusion, if properly drawn, cannot be false.”
10. “ . . . we must first turn our gaze in the right direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives.”
11. “Truth is ever truthful, and can tolerate no error in premise or conclusion.”
12. “Man walks in the direction towards which he looks, and where his treasure is, there will his heart be also.”
13. “When the heart speaks, however simple the words, its language is always acceptable to those who have hearts.”
14. “Mortal mind sees what it believes as certainly as it believes what it sees.”
15. “Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way. Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action.”
16. “We should examine ourselves and learn what is the affection and purpose of the heart, for in this way only can we learn what we honestly are.”
17. “Being possesses its qualities before they are perceived humanly.”
18. “Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously. When the condition is present which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears.”
19. “God is as incapable of producing sin, sickness, and death as He is of experiencing these errors. How then is it possible for Him to create man subject to this triad of errors—man who is made in the divine likeness?”
20. “The sun doesn’t know whether or not the people it shines on “deserve” the light. It has no awareness of personal merit or demerit. It shines because it’s the nature of the sun to shine.” Anonymous
David Brower (all quoted from Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run) 14 quotes
1. . . . “As thinking people, as environmentalists, all we have been able to do is to slow down the rate at which things have been getting worse.”
2. “For all the splendid increase in membership of the world’s environmental organizations, both wilderness and the ecological life-support system of the planet itself are increasingly going down the tubes. Could this be because large environmental groups are acting like government bureaucracies?”
3. “People want to help, but there is no organization for them to join, certainly nothing coordinated on a global level that is dedicated to restoring the Earth.”
4. “There now millions of dues-paying environmentalists in the United States alone. Some count the number at 10 million. There are more; they just haven’t signed up yet. But whatever the number, they don’t seem to have anywhere the power they should.”
5. “What are the reasons for this? The quick and dirty answer is: lack of boldness, smug leadership, battles over turf, absence from the legislative arena, bureaucracy, and no fun.”
6. “If you want an organization of cannibals,” Benton (MacKaye) would say, “then only cannibals may be admitted.” He would pause while you took in the import of that remark. Here’s what he meant: In the beginning get only the people who think the way you do, who believe. Put your act together with them, and make the idea and the organization as strong as you can, before you launch it to the public. This is the way to build an organization with real power.”
7. “Make it very clear what the organization stands for. Let that be known, and let that be the welcome mat for anyone who wants to come under your tent.”
8. “You’ve got to let people know you are not going to sell out, that you are not going to waffle on the basic principles. You can say, “I haven’t reached all my conclusions yet; I may not be all that practical. But this is the way I think I ought to be, and we stand for that. Then see who joins and what happens.”
9. . . . “If your purism consists of love for life and for the only planet we know to have life on it, I’ll accept that. But don’t then say you’ve got to love it in the following manner, and by the numbers. Love it your own way, and if you have a better way, please tell me about it.”
10. “The modern environmental movement seems to be having trouble with leadership. Who are the leaders? Where is the charisma?”
11. “One of the reasons certain groups don’t work too well, as of yet, is that they are so busy looking for consensus and fighting hierarchy that they miss the forests and the trees. Too much consensus makes it too easy for the lowest common denominator to rule. The group is not going to get “felled in.”
12. “That’s what Cpl. Wid Corn used to say when I was in the Tenth Mountain Division. “Come on, you guys, quit melling around and get felled in.”
13. “That is what’s happening with the Green Party. They are melling around and not getting felled in they argue, they argue some more. They agonize about hierarchy. They don’t want to offend anyone. But they disdain having character. They don’t seem to want to let anybody lead, and leaders are necessary.”
14. “I hurt him, and had not meant to. That flip statement did not come from an educated heart. An uneducated heart makes many mistakes.”
Jean Liedloff (all quoted from The Continuum Concept; except where noted) 10 quotes
1. “We are living lives for which our evolution did not equip us, and we are also handicapped, in our attempts to cope, by faculties crippled by personal deprivation.”
2. “We need to recognize that, by treating babies the way we did for hundreds of thousands of years, we can be assured of calm, soft, undemanding little creatures.”
3. “. . . an innate knowledge of one’s true worthiness. This knowledge is betrayed and eroded by experiences that impose erroneous beliefs, beliefs that in infancy and childhood one is unable to question.”
4. “We don't need to empower children to trust their nature. The tendency to trust is there. We simply need to allow them to do so.” (from Jean’s article, “Allowing Human Nature To Work Successfully”)
5. “ . . . the way we treat babies and children is not appropriate for human beings and is, along with many other customs that abuse our nature, the cause of widespread alienation, neurosis, and unhappiness.” (from Jean’s article, “Normal Neurotics Like Us”)
6. “. . . integrated into his new understanding of how things really are in his life (as opposed to how he has always believed them to be).”
7. “. . . it is the truth itself that brings about the transformation, and apparently only the truth, no matter now it is acquired:”
8. “ . . . like most such moments of enlightenment, it gave a glimpse of the existence of an order without revealing its construction, . . . the conviction that I had seen the elusive truth at last did little or nothing toward guiding my footsteps through the muddle. The brief vision was too fragile to survive the drop back to applicability.”
9. “It is no secret that the experts have not “discovered” how to live satisfactorily but the more they fail, the more they attempt to bring the problems under the sole influence of reason and disallow what reason cannot understand or control. . . . our inherent sense of what is good for us has been undermined to the point where we are barely aware of its working and cannot tell an original impulse from a distorted one.”
10. “It became clear that to believe we are, and have always been, worthy and welcome, we adults have to understand that our parents were wrong. I therefore worried about reconciling my clients with their parents via the fashionable “forgive them” approach. Trying to forgive one’s parents at the expense of living one’s own life with the feeling of being forever wrong seemed an even less attractive proposition. As it turned out, the most helpful way was to assist my clients in gaining freedom from parental authority and in seeing that their parents were just as likely to be tragic victims of their parents’ inappropriate behavior. The idea was simply to understand how mother and father came to behave as they did and thus strengthen our case against accepting that behavior as authoritative.” (from Jean’s article, “Normal Neurotics Like Us”)
Robert Fritz (all quoted from The Path of Least Resistance) 6 quotes
1. “There was nothing these pilots were going to do to make these inventions fly—because they were structurally incapable of flight. This is precisely why most organizations fail to fly as well. The structures that their members create are incapable of generating the results they truly desire. It doesn’t matter how hard people try, how good they are as people, or how lofty their aspirations are. There is nothing people are going to do to create the results of which they are potentially capable given the structures that predominate. And, worst of all, very few people are even aware of the problem. Almost everyone is busy trying to get the wings to flap faster, rather than asking the questions that might begin to reveal the structural causes of their limitation.”
2. “If anything, reactiveness in organizations has grown as a way of life in recent years with financial stress, downsizing, and increased workloads. This reactiveness just increases the tendency for structural conflicts to dominate—because no one has the time for the reflection and serious conversation to make it otherwise.”
3. . . . “in nature, energy moves where it is easiest to go. This is the principle of the path of least resistance.”
4. “The path unchanged leads to more of the same patterns the path changed equals new possibilities for success.”
5. “If we truly understand the profundity of the principle of the path of least resistance, we come to realize that often we are in situations that have their own rules and laws, and that we must follow these rules and laws whether we like it or not, and whether we know about them or not.”
6. “When we come to understand the true causes, we begin to see that there is both rhyme and reason in the events that occur.”
Alan Weisman, from book GAVIOTAS … A village to reinvent the world 5 quotes
1. “ … People who dare to build a utopia use the same materials available to anyone, but they find surprising ways to combine them. That’s exactly what composers do with the twelve tones of the scale. Like you, they’re dreamers. In a dream you are limited by what is assumed to be permissible or possible.” Gustavo Yepes, pg 8
2. “the world has too many specialists. We need more generalists who can see all the connections impossibilities area” pg 142 “we don’t have programs. Gabby this is a sum of random occurrences born out of chaos. Yada yada’s is the Uncertainty Principle. It’s a place where chance can incubate, work whopper ration replaces competition. Gaviotas is a nonlinear phenomenon. It’s involved with absolutely no planning whatsoever.” pg 143
3. “there’s nothing more unstable than trying to claim to stability.” pg 171
4. “ but Dr. Zapp,” one young woman had protested, “You haven’t taught us how to design yet” “Good. I haven’t contaminated your minds yet with my version of the right way, you’re free to think of anything.” … “think big picture, the more you try to grass, the more possibilities you have.” pg 36
5. “ since sunlight falls everywhere, the sole reason to centralize solar energy production was to keep utility companies and business.” pg 129
Pete Carroll 4 quotes
1. “Without preparation and practice you can’t develop your skills. We say practice is everything. That’s how you develop your potential.” Forbes article Pete Carroll On Turning Around An Organization–And Yourself by Marc Kramer 9/1/10
2. “We have to help our kids be what they want to be, not what we want them to be.” Forbes article Pete Carroll On Turning Around An Organization–And Yourself by Marc Kramer 9/1/10
3. “Put plainly, when we shield individuals and businesses (think the bailed out banks and carmakers) from their errors, we perpetuate what makes them mediocre while robbing them of the knowledge that would make them successful.” From Forbes article Congratulations To Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll, The NFL's Greatest Failure by John Tamny 2/2/14
4. “I think that what we’re talking about is the truth,” he said. “Helping people be the best they can be — it doesn’t matter what you’re talking about. Football, or whether you ‘re talking about business, or talking about families — the language and the intent and doing everything you can to help them. I can understand why that does resonate, and I’m very excited about that, because I know that the message goes beyond football.” … “Just because you make a mistake doesn’t mean that you don’t have all the good in you — for your future. People make mistakes all the time. We learn and grow. If there’s patience and love and you care for people, you can work them through it, and they can find their greatest heights. I love that this message is part of our program, because it really needs to be part of a lot of programs.” Pete Carroll found himself, and then found his ultimate redemption “Audibles” by Doug Farrar in nfl.si.com—posted February 4, 2014
John Perkins (all quoted from The Confessions of an Economic Hitman) 4 quotes
1. “. . . most powerful is the message it (“The Prophecy of the Condor and the Eagle”) offers about consciousness; it says that we have entered a time when we can benefit from the many diverse ways of seeing ourselves and the world and that we can use these as a springboard to higher levels of awareness. As human beings we can truly wake up and evolve into a more conscious species. … We who live in the most powerful nation history has ever known must stop worrying so much about the outcome of soap operas, football games, quarterly balance sheets and the daily Dow Jones averages and must instead reevaluate who we are and where we want our children to end up. The alternative to stopping to ask ourselves the important questions is simply too dangerous.”
2. “In her new book The Real Wealth of Nations, Dr. Riane Eisler reports: ‘When the status and power of women is higher, so also is a nation’s general quality of life, and when it’s lower, so is the quality of life for all.’”
3. (addressing a conference of non-profit activists) “Every one of you is involved in important work. But, in a way, you’re applying Band-Aids. We’re hemorrhaging badly, so we need Band-Aids, but unless we start curing the disease, the underlying cause, all the Band-Aids in the world won’t save us.”
4. “It is imperative that we develop an awareness that every action we take and every product we buy impacts other people and the places where they live’ collectively, our lifestyles today determine the future our children and grandchildren will inherit.”
Robert Pirsig 3 quotes
1. “to the untrained eye ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical.” (from book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) pg 211
2. “A supersaturated solution is one in which the saturation point, at which no more material will dissolve, has been exceeded. . . . the material sometimes doesn’t crystallize out because the molecules don’t know how. They require something to get them started, a seed crystal, or a grain of dust or even a sudden scratch or tap on the surrounding glass.” (from book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) pg 181
3. “We build up whole cultural intellectual patterns based on past “facts” which are extremely selective. When a new fact comes in that does not fit the pattern we don’t throw out the pattern. We throw out the fact. A contradictory fact has to keep hammering and hammering and hammering, sometimes for centuries, before maybe one or two people will see it. And then these one or two have to start hammering on others for a long time before they see it too.” (from book Lila) pg 386
Zig Ziggler 3 quotes
1. “. . . On this occasion, the cook brought out a pan of biscuits. Since they were no thicker than a silver dollar, I asked, ‘Maude, what happened to those biscuits?’ She reared back, laughed and said, ‘Well, those biscuits squatted to rise, but they just got cooked in the squat.’” (from book See You At the Top) pg 38
2. “There is little you can learn from doing nothing. … If you aim at nothing. You will hit everytime!”
3. “If you're sincere, praise is effective. If you're insincere, it's manipulative.”
Steven Covey 2 quotes
1. “If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results” The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
2. “If the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall, every step just gets you to the wrong place faster” The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Aristotle 1 quote
“First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.”
Chinese Proverb 1 quote
“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it.” found in Forbes 100 Inspirational Quotes document
Jason Clay 1 quote
“You cannot wake a person who is pretending to sleep!” (in a TED Talk, “How Big Brands Can Help Save Biodiversity”)
J Krishnamurti 1 quote
“It is no measure of good health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Dalai Lama 1 quote
“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower 1 quote
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” (Farewell Address—January 17, 1961)
Gandhi 1 quote
“Don’t mix up that which is habitual with that which is natural.”
Peter Kingsley 1 quote
. . . “before understanding the illusions one naturally has to know the realities;” pg 151 (from book A Story Waiting to Pierce You)
David Letterman (with Jonny Carson on “The Tonight Show” 8/30/91) 1 quote
1. . . . “The answer is incomplete because we haven’t been paying close enough attention to the question!”
Gerald Massey (1827 – 1907) 1 quote
“They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority as truth, rather than truth as authority.”
George Bernard Shaw 1 quote
“The power of accurate observation is called cynicism by those who have not got it.”
Tolstoy 1 quote
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
John Wooden 1 quote
“If you don’t have the time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it over.”
Bill Wulf 1 quote
“There is only one nature – the division into science and engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed, the division is a human failure; it reflects our limited capacity to comprehend the whole.”
Gene Youngblood 1 quote
1. “Now when Buckminster Fuller says that for the first time in history it's possible to be free from having to prove your right to live, you just shrug it off and say, “Swell, Bucky; that's really great,” and you go on about your business. Do you understand what he's saying? Do you un–,derstand that he's not joking? Do you understand what it means to say that we now have the technology and the in¬formation to make every human being physically success¬ful at birth? We now have the ability to guarantee that every child born after 1985 will never have to prove his right to live. Do you understand what kind of statement that is? It's incredible. It’s overwhelming. It’s the most important thing a man can say. But people just shrug it off. And we know why, don’t we? Because of conditioning. Because if you accept it as truth, it means that everything you’re now doing is use¬less and illusory. It means you’ll have to take action and change your life fundamentally. And we’re all conditioned to be lazy. We’re all armchair revolutionaries. We talk big, but our actions aren’t as big as our words. We throw rocks and burn down banks and carry picket signs, but we’re only asking for very minor changes in the system. We don’t have the guts to undertake the kind of massive change that everyone secretly knows is necessary.” (an excerpt from the second of four installments of a World Game lecture delivered on Earth Day, April 22, 1970, at the School of Architecture, University of Southern California)
Howard Zinn 1 quote
“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
Source: Dave Buck
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