“Readers of Ishmael often assume that I must be a great lover of nature.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I’m a great lover of the world, which is something quite different.
Nature is a figment of the Romantic imagination, and a very insidious figment at that.

There simply is no such thing as nature –
in the sense of a realm of being from which humans can distinguish themselves.
It just doesn’t exist.”

“If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds,
people with a new vision.

It will not be saved by people with old minds and new programs.
It will not be saved by people with the old vision but a new program.”

“We can’t wait for our national leaders to save us .

When all we demand from them (or even tolerate from them)
are instant, short-term gains,
why would they suddenly begin thinking like global visionaries?”

“Of course when the people of your culture look at tribal peoples,
they don’t see wealth of any kind, they see poverty.

This is understandable, since the only kind of wealth
they recognize is the kind that can be locked up,
and tribal peoples are not much interested in that kind.”