I have amazing news for you. Man is not alone on this planet. He is part of a community, upon which he depends absolutely.

The world is not in any sense in danger from itself. The world is in fact not in any danger at all. It is we who are in danger.

....he began to speak to me, not in the jocular way of visitors to the menagerie but rather as one speaks to the wind or to the waves crashing on a beach, uttering that which must be said but which must not be heard by anyone.

Far 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.

The world must live. We are only one species among billions. The gods don't love us any more than they love spiders or bears or whales or water lilies.

Many of the biggest and most far-reaching investments we make in our lives are investments that have little or nothing to do with money.

The world of the Takers is one vast prison, and except for a handful of Leavers scattered across the world, the entire human race is now inside that prison.