Derrick Jensen Quotes
I thought a forest was made up entirely of trees, but now I know that the foundation lies below ground, in the fungi.
A culture that values production over life values the wrong things, because it will produce things at the expense of living beings, human or otherwise.
If your homeland were invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?
For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.
I am only so beautiful as the character of my relationships, only so rich as I enrich those around me, only so alive as I enliven those I greet.
We have been too kind to those who are killing the planet. We have been inexcusably, unforgivably, insanely kind.
No matter what we call it, poison is still poison, death is still death, and industrial civilization is still causing the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet.
Hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.
In order to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves.
The stories we are told shape the way we see the world, which shapes the way we experience the world.
The global industrial economy is the engine for massive environmental degradation and massive human (and nonhuman) impoverishment.
A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of green paper.
We have a need for enchantment that is as deep and devoted as our need for food and water.
I think it's very important for us to start to build a culture of resistance, because what we're doing isn't working, clearly.
Like the layers of an onion, under the first lie is another, and under that another, and they all make you cry.
We cannot hope to create a sustainable culture with any but sustainable souls.
If you only had a limited time to life (which is of course the case), how would you spend your time?
There is always money to kill people. There is never enough money for life affirming ends.
So long as we only believe in the justice of the state, of the law-made by those in power, to serve those in power-so long will we continue to be exploited by those in power.
Writing is really very easy. Tap a vein and bleed onto the page. Everything else is just technical.
a real partnership in which all parties help all others to be more fully themselves
As is true for most people I know, I've always loved learning. As is also true for most people I know, I always hated school. Why is that?
When we realize the degree of agency we actually do have, we no longer have to "hope" at all. We simply do the work.
If any thing can be predicated as universally true of uncultivated man, it is that he will not labour beyond what is absolutely necessary to maintain his existence.
I no longer see Descartes' statement as arbitrary. It is representative of our culture's narcissism. This narcissism leads to a disturbing disrespect for direct experience and a negation of the body.
The task we all face as human beings ... is to find and become who we are. The task teachers face is to find their own way of teaching, one that manifests who they are.
If we wish to stop the atrocities, we need merely to step away from the isolation. There is a whole world waiting for us, ready to welcome us home.
Premise Eight: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system.
To believe Christianity stands in opposition to slavery is at best to think anachronistically and at worst to not understand Christianity.
I think a lot of us are increasingly recognizing that the dominant culture is killing the planet.
A friend asked, "If increased awareness means less happiness, why bother?" No answer.
...a woman smart and persistent enough that even a PhD in psychology hasn't clouded her insight into how people think and act.
I waited for him to come out. He didn't. I considered going in after him, but knew the fact that I had readied myself to kill him did not mean that he had readied himself to die.
In sum, one of the primary things I learned was how to kill time. I learned also to wish away my life. I learned to give myself away.
Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organised political resistance