Garrett Hardin Quotes

People are the quintessential element in all technology... Once we recognize the inescapable human nexus of all technology our attitude toward the reliability problem is fundamentally changed.

No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.

An attack on values is inevitably seen as an act of subversion.

Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.

Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species

The morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed.

Value is a relative concept: the value of each action is determined by comparing it with other possible actions.

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.

In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable

The greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion.

Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general public under frontier conditions, because there is no public, the same behavior in a metropolis is unbearable.

The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.