Once you learn to discern the voice of Mother Culture humming in the background, telling her story over and over again to the people of your culture, youโll never stop being conscious of it. Wherever you go for the rest of your life, youโll be tempted to say to the people around you, โhow can you listen to this stuff and not recognize it for what it is?
Daniel QuinnIf you canโt discover whatโs keeping you in, the will to get out soon becomes confused and ineffectual - "Ishmael
Daniel QuinnFar and away the most futile admonition Christ ever offered was when he said, 'Have no care for tomorrow. Don't worry about whether you're going to have something to eat. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, but God takes perfect care of them. Don't you think he'll do the same for you?' In our culture the overwhelming answer to that question is, 'Hell no!' Even the most dedicated monastics saw to their sowing and reaping and gathering into barns.
Daniel QuinnWe've poured our poisons into the world as though it were a bottomless pit.. and we go on gobbling them up. It's hard to imagine how the world could survive another century of this abuse, but nobody's really doing anything about it. It's a problem our children will have to solve, or their children.
Daniel QuinnI hope it will not be too long before the technologies that support our population explosion begin to be perceived as no less hazardous to the future of life on this planet than the endless production of radioactive wastes.
Daniel QuinnThinkers aren't limited by what they know, because they can always increase what they know. Rather they're limited by what puzzles them, because there's no way to become curious about something that doesn't puzzle you.
Daniel QuinnIn effect, you're saying that if you knew how you oughtt to live, then the flaw is man could be controlled. If you knew how you ought to live, you wouldn't be forever screwing up the world. perhaps in fact the two things are actually one thing. Perhaps the flaw in man is exactly this: that he doesn't know how he ought to live.
Daniel Quinn