Daniel Quinn Quotes

From infancy onward, children are the most fantastic learners in the world.

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.

I went out and had a drink. I needed to talk to someone, and solitary drinkers are lucky in this regard - they always have someone to talk to.

When one does not see what one does not see, one does not even see that one is blind. - Paul Veyne

[N]ow we have a clearer idea what this story is all about: The world was made for man, and man was made to rule it.

May the forests be with you and with your children.

I find that the longer I live, the more I worry about people and the less I worry about rules.

Indigenous people believe that Man belongs to the World; civilized people believe that the World belongs to Man.

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.

You wouldn't know from experience that small children are the most powerful learning engines in the known universe.

The first time I read the ad, I choked and cursed and spat and threw the paper to the floor.

Courage is the virtue of the free.

No story is devoid of meaning ... If you know how to look for it.

Has it ever occurred to you to wonder if the history we teach our children is a lie?

Animists are not so much people with a religion as people with a fundamentally religious way of looking at things.

Tribal people get more out of life.

Lies are like sleeping pills. You should only use them when you absolutely have to. They spoil everything if you make a habit of them.

The rules that govern competition between species are (and must be) very different from the rules that govern competition within species.

Only slaves love being powerful. HANS ERICH NOSSACK

How easy it is first to leap to a false conclusion about someone and then to view everything he does in light of that conclusion.

It's not MAN who is the scourge of the world, it's a single culture. One culture out of hundreds of thousands of cultures. Our culture.

Because the tribe is its members, the tribe is what its members want it to be - nothing more and nothing less.

Don't try to drive the homeless into places we find suitable. Help them survive in places they find suitable.

The obvious can sometimes be illuminating when perceived in an unhabitual way.

There is enormous pressure on you to take a place in the story your culture is enacting in the world - any place at all.

The premise of the Taker story is 'the world belongs to man'. ... The premise of the Leaver story is 'man belongs to the world'.

Increasing food production to feed an increased population results in yet another increase in population.

It applies to all species without distinction.

But charisma only wins people's attention. Once you have their attention, you have to have something to tell them.

There are times when having too much to say can be as dumbfounding as having too little.

Donald Trump can do a lot of things I can't, but he can no more get out of the prison than I can

I pray about teeth-doesn't everyone? I don't have time to floss. You know. Hang in there, I tell them; I'll get around to it before it's too late.

We're straying from the path of salvation because we remember that we once belonged to the world and were content in that belonging.

We need schools to force kids to learn things they have no use for.

You know how to split atoms, how to send explorers to the moon, how to splice genes, but you don't know how people ought to live.

Arts and disciplines of that kind are fundamentally selfish; they're all designed to benefit the pupil - not the world - "Ishmael

We had been taken from The Wild and brought together in one place, because, for some strange reason, people found us interesting.

If you can't discover what's keeping you in, the will to get out soon becomes confused and ineffectual - Ishmael

The world is not in any sense in danger from itself. The world is in fact not in any danger at all. It is we who are in danger.

Blessed are those who do whatever they can wherever they are, for no one is devoid of resources or opportunities.

I have amazing news for you. Man is not alone on this planet. He is part of a community, upon which he depends absolutely.

Pity is always twinged with disgust.

For someone bent on achievement, education is a thing you get past and forget about as quickly as possible.

Our lifestyle is evolutionarily unstable
and is therefore in the process of eliminating itself in the perfectly ordinary way.

Imagine that the gods have a care for everything that lives in the community of life on earth.

Wow, just imagine missing school on the day when they were learning blue. You'd spend the rest of your life wondering what color the sky is.

We are all captives of a story.

The world is not going to survive very much longer as humanity's captive.

In hierarchal organizations, the boss is a supreme being. In tribal organizations, the boss is just another worker.

I can't shake the crazy feeling that there is some small thing that we're being lied to about.

What he had to tell them was a story

In fact, of course, there is no secret knowledge; no one knows anything that can't be found on a shelf in the public library.

You never actually know how you're going to handle a problem until you actually have it.

Children don't need learning. They need access to what they want to learn outside the home.

A tribe is nothing more than a coalition of people working together as equals to make a living.

But why? Why do you need prophets to tell you how you ought to live? Why do you need anyone to tell you how you ought to live

There is no one right way to live.

You shouldn't have to settle for rabbits if what you want is deer

[A]ny species that exempts itself from the rules of competition ends up destroying the community in order to support its own expansion.

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.

What's normal is for things to work. What's not normal is for things to fail.

Simple things are almost always the hardest to explain, Julie. Showing someone how to tie a shoelace is easy. Explaining it is almost impossible.

With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?

WHAT you DO NOT KNOW YOURSELF, you CANNOT TEACH ANOTHER.

TEACHER seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.

With gorilla gone, will there be hope for man?

Many of the biggest and most far-reaching investments we make in our lives are investments that have little or nothing to do with money.

If the world was made for us, then it BELONGS to us and we can do what we damn well please with it.