Monday, April 23, 2007

Happy Belated Earth Day


Trillium Soon
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.
Sorry, Earth, that I didn't get a card in the mail on time...

A few quotes...

Practical, personal paths can heal our lives and help our planet. As societies, we create the very inequalities and devastation of nature we as individuals abhor. The way out is individual responsibility and commitment in action. Often, the trail leads straight through the kitchen.

~K.C. Compton

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

~Henry David Thoreau

There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

~Aldo Leopold

When a man must be afraid to drink freely from his country's rivers and streams, that country is no longer fit to live in.

~Edward Abbey

Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then you will find that money cannot be eaten.

~Cree Indian prophecy

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.

~Dorothy Day

10 comments:

Eben Flood said...

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

~Henry David Thoreau


Great quote. Even better when you take the liberty of replacing 'A man' with 'A government'.

Michael Westmoreland-White said...

I'd replace "a man" with "a corporation."

David Houser said...

Fine quotes. I'm wondering - in light of our recent exchange at Eleutheros's blog - if you're aware that half of them are from anarchists?

Dan Trabue said...

Which half? I have my doubts...

David Houser said...

Thoreau - 'On Civil Disobedience' is a fine piece of anti-state writing, and sits well
next to any anarchist text. Emma Goldman called
him the greatest of the American anarchists.

Abbey - pretty explicitly anarchist throughout his
writing: “Anarchism is founded on the observation that
since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even
fewer are wise enough to rule others.” And " A patriot
must always be ready to defend his country against the
government."

Day - I've only read a bit about her, but she seems
never to have heard of a government action that she
approved of, was close with a lot of anarchists
(including the Christian anarchist Ammon Hennacy), and
is listed in Wikipedia's entry on American anarchists.


Also, I believe all three were active tax resisters.

Dan Trabue said...

God bless 'em.

Dan Trabue said...

I still have my doubts, though. Abbey, maybe. Maybe. Not trusting one's gov't (I don't) does not equal no belief in a gov't.

I don't think Thoreau nor Day were anarchists, though.

David Houser said...

Well, during Thoreau's time I don't believe the term "anarchist" would have been much known, but these:

"I heartily accept the motto, – “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, – “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government."

are not the words of a supporter of the state.

As for Day, a Google search on "Christian anarchists" will bring plenty of hits with her name.

Abbey: "Grown men do not need leaders."

Dan Trabue said...

There's a big difference between wanting that gov't which governs least and no gov't at all.

David Houser said...

A good point, which is probably why he addresses it very specifically:

Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, – “That government is best which governs not at all”