The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.

I think Americans are so poor it's pitiful, because you don't understand the natural world at all.

Stupidity is an attempt to iron out all differences, and not to use them or value them creatively.

I probably lead a very spoiled life, because I travel from people interested in permaculture to people interested in permaculture. Some of them are tribal, and some of them are urban, and so on.

I think the world would function extremely well with millions of little cooperative groups, all in relation to each other.

If you're a simple person today, and want to live simply, that is awfully seditious. And to advise people to live simply is more seditious still.

I believe humanity is a pretty interesting lot, and they're all really busy doing and thinking interesting things.