Philosophy Quote by Daniel Quinn — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“If the world was made for us, then it BELONGS to us and we can do what we damn well please with it.”

“You're captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live. … You are captives—and you have made a captive of the world itself. That's what's at stake, isn't it?—your captivity and the captivity of the world.”

“If you alone found out what the lie was, then you're probably right—it would make no great difference. But if you ALL found out what the lie was, it might conceivably make a very great difference indeed.”

“If you go to Singapore or Amsterdam or Seoul or Buenos Aires or Islamabad or Johannesburg or Tampa or Istanbul or Kyoto, you'll find that the people differ wildly in the way they dress, in their marriage customs, in the holidays they observe, in their religious rituals, and so on, but they all expect the food to be under lock and key. It's all owned, and if you want some, you'll have to buy it.”

“...it doesn’t make any difference. Whether we’re being lied to or not, we still have to get up and go to work and pay the bills and all the rest.”

“Rebelling is just obeying in reverse.”

“If translation is realignment, what specifically is getting realigned? Our perceptions, our literary categories, our languages? I would say it's the text's relationship to its audience-who is speaking, who is addressed, where the text is "pointing." Any text can, and any good text will, redirect our perceptions, redefine the genre it's working within, and change the resources or enlarge the scope of the language it's written in, but the particular "realignment" that takes place in translation refers to the vector pointing from author to reader.”

“I pretend not to be a champion of that same naked virtue called truth, to the very outrance. I can consent that her charms be hidden with a veil, were it but for decency's sake.”

“What are we doing to each other? Because I know that I am doing to him exactly what he is doing to me. We are sometimes so happy, and never in our lives have we known more unhappiness.”

“I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.”