Jacque Fresco: Quotes about people

“LOVE is to stop making demands on people and give them room to grow.”

“Democracy is a con game. It’s a word invented to placate people to make them accept a given institution. All institutions sing, ‘We are free.’ The minute you hear ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, watch out… because in a truly free nation, no one has to tell you you’re free.”

“People usually blame themselves or “fate.””

“Our times demand the declaration of the world's resources as the common heritage of all people.”

“You know that you can't go out there and change the world tomorrow morning. It just takes time, and the realization of that does not produce frustration. What produces frustration, is when you expect the world to join with your cause it's so reasonable. It is not reasonable to unreasonable people.”

“What has been handed down to us does not seem to be working for the majority of people. With the advances in science and technology over the last two hundred years, you may be asking: “does it have to be this way?””

“People will continue to search for answers to universal and perplexing problems. But to find meaningful answers, one must first know what questions to ask.”

“All people are brought up by cultures and every culture says 'You live in the greatest country in the world' 'I'm American and proud of it', 'I'm Canadian. I'm proud of it' That separates people. Now, if you were brought up in Ireland, you'd say, 'The Irish people are fine, there's a fine Irish lad sitting there'. Well, even your dialect, your facial expressions, you pick up from your country or the area you come from. If you still don't understand that, if you were brought up in Australia, you'd say, 'How are ya, Mate? Yeah Yeah Yeah'. That's normal in Australia. If a Filipino baby was brought up in Australia, that's the way it speaks.”

“Living through the 1929 Great Depression helped shape my social conscience. During this time, I realized the earth was still the same place, manufacturing plants were still intact, and resources were still there, but people didn’t have money to buy the products. I felt the rules of the game we play by were outmoded and damaging. This began a life-long quest resulting in the conclusions and designs presented in The Venus Project.”

“Politics was good a hundred years ago. Today, politicians have no ability to solve any problems because they are not students of behavior. They are not students of agriculture, oceanography, they know nothing about the factors that operate the world. So, they say things that people like to hear. And that gets them elected. Now scientists on the other hand are not concerned with public approval. What they do, even if everybody on earth believe the earth was flat, they would say: 'You're wrong, this is the evidence we have to support the fact that the earth is round' but they don't say: 'it's a little round and a little flat' - that's politicians.”

“You cannot approach people who think differently with reason and logic if they don't know what that means. First, you have to appeal to their values to start with. If you attack them, you lose them.”

“You can either have one guy lifting a billion pounds by himself, and it takes many years of planning and preparation - or you can have a billion people, each lifting one pound, and it takes a mere moment. This is the power of unity.”

“We talk about civilization as though it's a static state. There are no civilized people yet, it's a process that's constantly going on… As long as you have war, police, prisons, crime, you are in the early stages of civilization.”

“Human beings free of debt, insecurity, and fear become much more amiable. With no one out to sell anyone anything or to deprive another of possessions or money, the basis for unhealthy human aggression is outgrown. People no longer are burdened by the nagging concerns that consume so much attention such as mortgages, health care costs, education fees, fire insurance, economic recession or depression, the loss of jobs, and taxes. With the elimination of these burdens and the removal of the conditions that create feelings of envy, greed, and competition, people’s lives would be far more meaningful.”

“Many people today see genes as a reason for aberrant behavior, but the major influences have been shown to be environmental... What is considered appropriate behavior today may be considered un-sane in the future...Better values, ideals, and behavior cannot be fully realized while there is still hunger, unemployment, deprivation, war, and poverty.”