Ronald Wright Quotes

#1. To use a computer analogy, we are running twenty-first-century software on hardware last upgraded 50,000 years ago or more. This may explain quite a lot of what we see in the news.

Ronald Wright

#2. Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up.

Ronald Wright

#3. Our word "lord" comes from the Old English hlaford, or "loafward," he who guarded the bread supply - and was expected to share it.

Ronald Wright

#4. Soon after man shows up in new lands, the big game starts to go missing. [ ... ] A bad smell of extinction follows Home sapiens around the world. (37)

Ronald Wright

#5. If civilization is to survive, it must live on the interest, not the capital, of nature.

Ronald Wright

#6. Benjamin Disraeli had anticipated Erewhon's fears in his novel Coningsby: "The mystery of mysteries," he wrote, "is to view machines making machines, a spectacle that fills the mind with curious and even awful speculation.

Ronald Wright

#7. Societies that do not eat people are fascinated by those that do.

Ronald Wright

#8. America seemed a virgin land waiting for civilization. But Europe had made the wilderness it found; America was not a virgin, she was a widow.

Ronald Wright

#9. kin, not ancestors. Our main difference from

Ronald Wright

#10. The most compelling reason for reforming our system is that the system is in no one's interest. It is a suicide machine.

Ronald Wright

#11. In times of war or crisis, power is easily stolen from the many by the few on a promise of security. The more elusive the or imaginary the foe, the better for manufacturing consent.

Ronald Wright

#12. Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

Ronald Wright

#13. Like all creatures, humans have made their way in the world by trial and error. Unlike other creatures we have a presence so colossal that error is a luxury we can no longer afford. The world has grown too small to forgive us any big mistakes.

Ronald Wright