We got hooked on grain-fed meat just as we got hooked on gas guzzling automobiles. Big cars made sense only when oil was cheap; grain-fed meat makes sense only because the true costs of producing it are not counted.

There are surprising turning points; there is the straw that breaks the camel's back, and you never know if your action could be the straw.

What we see today is a world movement represented by the World Social Forum, involving all sorts of interactions across cultures, not to create some new "ism," but to learn as we walk and to create more democratic forms of social organization that re-embed economic life in community.

Beauty is created by fellow human beings, and enhanced because they are in relationship with each other.

Humans need to feel effective - to feel that we can "make a dent," as he puts it. So the art of living is to find expressions appropriate to our own uniqueness in which we can experience effectiveness.

Hope is not what we find in evidence, it's what we become in action.

A life-long mission has been to counter the notion that political engagement is the spinach we must eat in order to have the dessert of freedom.