All of our current environmental problems are unanticipated harmful consequences of our existing technology. There is no basis for believing that technology will miraculously stop causing new and unanticipated problems while it is solving the problems that it previously produced.

[T]he values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs.

One person making a wrong decision affects the whole country.

History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.

The rate of human invention is faster, and the rate of cultural loss is slower, in areas occupied by many competing societies with many individuals and in contact with societies elsewhere.

The King's 28 letters have been described by scholars as the world's best alphabet and the most scientific system of writing.

The metaphor is so obvious. Easter Island isolated in the Pacific Ocean — once the island got into trouble, there was no way they could get free. There was no other people from whom they could get help. In the same way that we on Planet Earth, if we ruin our own [world], we won't be able to get help.