Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system

I can easily teach people to be gardeners, and from them, once they know how to garden, you'll get a philosopher.

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.

That we don't design agriculture to be sustainable is totally eerie. We design it to be a disaster, and of course, we get a disaster.

There is no more time-wasting process than that of believing people will act, and then finding that they will not.

We have to let nature put what's left together, and see what it can come up with to save our ass.

Permaculture creates a cultivated ecology, which is designed to produce more human and animal food than is generally found in nature.