The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them.

But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere.

You cannot do only one thing.

(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)

No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.

In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable

People are the quintessential element in all technology... Once we recognize the inescapable human nexus of all technology our attitude toward the reliability problem is fundamentally changed.

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.

Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming.

Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.

The only thing we can really count on in this uncertain world is human unreliability itself.

All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul.

He's a novice - he should keep his opinions to Japanese football

My dad is kind of a rascal, like in a Dickensian sense. He just goes from career to career.

Shoot up everything except a school or a playground

In New York, people are unhappy on purpose, because unhappiness makes them seem more complex; in Washington DC it just sort of works out that way.

Though Diogenes lived in a tub, there might be, for aught I know, as much pride under his rags, as in the fine-spun garments of the divine Plato.

Life isn't nearly as sacred as the appreciation of passion.

It's a disservice, really, when we put celebrated people on a pedestal and don't allow them to be human. It's a very lonely experience for the individual. It's not a sustainable way to live.

Faith, like light, should always be simple and unbending; while love, like warmth, should beam forth on every side, and bend to every necessity of our brethren.

Self-satisfaction and self-pity are both condemned. What are people permitted to feel about themselves?