I have long been convinced that families are the primary agents of social change in any society.

Why is it that we are born remembering, and live forgetting?

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyous words in the language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying.

When three generations are present in a family, one of them is bound to be revolutionary.

For the real difference between happiness and joy is that one is grounded in this world, the other in eternity. Happiness cannot encompass suffering and evil. Joy can. Happiness depends on the present. Joy leaps into the future and triumphantly creates a new present out of it.

The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.

We're never going to have respectful and reverential relationships with the planet- and sensible policies about what we put in the air, the soil, the water - if very young children don't begin learning about these things literally in their houses, backyards, streets and schools. We need to have human beings who are oriented that way from their earliest memories.