Do not go gentle into that good night
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-- Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
...the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is
before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet
it.
Thucydides
The industrial corporation is the natural enemy of nature.
-- Edward Abbey
You cannot believe in honor unless you have achieved it. Better keep yourself
clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under
the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmer of water, or
watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste
of time.
--Sir J. Lubbock
"Since the bicycle makes little demand on material or energy resources,
contributes little to pollution, makes a positive contribution to health and
causes little death or injury, it can be regarded as the most benevolent of
machines."
-- S. S. Wilson
[W]e shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we
reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence
save to serve man.
-- Lynn White, Jr., "The Historical Roots of Our
Ecologic Crisis", Science V. 155 No. 3767 (10 March 1967),
pp. 1203-1207.
The universe does not give first warnings. Or second chances.
-- Solomon Short
Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes.
Galileo: No, unhappy the land that needs heroes.
-- Bertolt Brecht, "Life of Galileo"
Put out your hands and you fall through the window
And clawing at nothing you drop through the void
And even while screaming and writhing you reach for the
Spiraling one that would let you be free
The spiraling shape will make you go insane
But everyone wants to see that groovy thing
And now that you've tried it you're back to report that
The spiraling shape was a fraud and a fake
You didn't enjoy it you never believed it
There won't be a refund. You'll never go back.
The spiraling shape will make you go insane
But everyone wants to see that groovy thing
---"Spiraling Shape", They Might be Giants
"In ecology, as in economics, TANSTAAFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free
Lunch) is intended to warn that every gain is won at some cost. Failure to
recognize the "no free lunch" law causes the buffalo-hunter mentality
syndrome -- the unthinking assumption that there will always be plenty because
there always has been plenty."
-- Dr. Robert W. Prehoda
Our sires' age was worse that our grandsires'.
We their sons are more worthless than they:
so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.
-- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) (65-8 B.C.)
This is no time for ease and comfort.
It is the time to dare and endure.
-- Sir Winston S. Churchill
I think that I shall never see
A thing as lovely as a tree.
But as you see the trees have gone
They went this morning with the dawn.
A logging firm from out of town
Came and chopped the trees all down.
But I will trick those dirty skunks
And write a brand new poem called 'Trunks'.
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite
you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
-- Mark Twain
If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all.
-- Ronald Reagan
It is against the law for a monster to enter the corporate limits of Urbana, Illinois.
Thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a hair less in his
beard than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts,
having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes; what eye but
such an eye, would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is full of
quarrels, as an egg is full of meat.
-- William Shakespeare
The real work of men was hunting meat. The invention of agriculture was a
giant step in the wrong direction, leading to serfdom, cities, and empire.
From a race of hunters, artists, warriors, and tamers of horses, we degraded
ourselves to what we are now: clerks, functionaries, laborers, entertainers,
processors of information.
-- Edward Abbey
Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by
destroying the earth.
-- Albert Schweitzer
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
-- Albert Einstein
Must the hunger become anger and the anger fury before anything will be done?
-- John Steinbeck (1902-1968)
"I shot an arrow into the air, and it stuck."
-- Graffito in Los Angeles
Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of
conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the
fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he
is most likely to be creamed?
-- Solomon Short
"One planet is all you get."
Save the Whales -- Harpoon a Honda.