Ishmael (Ishmael, #1) QUOTES

2 " There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will ACT like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now. "

― Daniel Quinn , Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

4 " Do you see the slightest evidence anywhere in the universe that creation came to an end with the birth of man? Do you see the slightest evidence anywhere out there that man was the climax toward which creation had been straining from the beginning? ...Very far from it. The universe went on as before, the planet went on as before. Man's appearance caused no more stir than the appearance of jellyfish. "

― Daniel Quinn , Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

6 " [A]ny species that exempts itself from the rules of competition ends up destroying the community in order to support its own expansion. "

― Daniel Quinn , Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

8 " Diversity is a survival factor for the community itself. A community of a hundred million species can survive anything short of total global catastrophe. Within that hundred million will be thousands that could survive a global temperature drop of twenty degrees—which would be a lot more devastating than it sounds. Within that hundred million will be thousands that could survive a global temperature rise of twenty degrees. But a community of a hundred species or a thousand species has almost no survival value at all. "

― Daniel Quinn , Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

10 " [I]n Africa I was a member of a family—of a sort of family that the people of your culture haven't known for thousands of years. If gorillas were capable of such an expression, they would tell you that their family is like a hand, of which they are the fingers. They are fully aware of being a family but are very little aware of being individuals. Here in the zoo there were other gorillas—but there was no family. Five severed fingers do not make a hand. "

― Daniel Quinn , Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

12 " [Y]our agricultural revolution is not an event like the Trojan War, isolated in the distant past and without relevance to your lives today. The work begun by those neolithic farmers in the Near East has been carried forward from one generation to the next without a single break, right into the present moment. It's the foundation of your vast civilization today in exactly the same way that it was the foundation of the very first farming village. "

― Daniel Quinn , Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

14 " This law … defines the limits of competition in the community of life. You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war. "

― Daniel Quinn , Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

16 " [N]ow we have a clearer idea what this story is all about: The world was made for man, and man was made to rule it. "

― Daniel Quinn , Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

18 " The obvious can sometimes be illuminating when perceived in an unhabitual way. "

― Daniel Quinn , Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

20 " The journey itself is going to change you, so you don’t have to worry about memorizing the route we took to accomplish that change. "

― Daniel Quinn , Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)