I didn't want to teach my kid how to read, so I used to read to him at night and close the book at the most interesting part. He said, “What happened then, daddy?” I said, “If you learn to read, you can find out. I'm too tired to read. I'll read to you tomorrow.” So, he had a need to want to learn how to read. Don't teach children how to read. Don't teach them mathematics. Give them a reason to want it. In school, they're working ass-backwards.

Living through the 1929 Great Depression helped shape my social conscience. During this time, I realized the earth was still the same place, manufacturing plants were still intact, and resources were still there, but people didn’t have money to buy the products. I felt the rules of the game we play by were outmoded and damaging. This began a life-long quest resulting in the conclusions and designs presented in The Venus Project.

You can teach people specific reasoning, such as how to fly a kite or build a wheel. General reasoning cannot be imparted upon people, particularly if they like things the way they are - meaning, if their reactions are very simple. The reason most people behave badly or poorly is because they only understand simple things.

Earth is abundant with plentiful resources. Our practice of rationing resources through monetary control is no longer relevant and is counter-productive to our survival.

We talk about civilization as though it's a static state. There are no civilized people yet, it's a process that's constantly going on... As long as you have war, police, prisons, crime, you are in the early stages of civilization.

And you can't find "love" because in order to find "love" you have to be capable of dishing it out. In order to be capable of giving "love", your own life has to be in harmony with everything else, and that's not attainable.

Whatever I decide will not work. It's what people want that will work. So no one decided whether you become a vegetarian or anything else. What determines that is the availability of food. If we run out of vegetation due to floods or natural disasters, people will consume meat and if we run out of meat they will consume vegetables. I have no control over that. That would be up to people.