“History and geology show what an eyeblink it’s been since our current, comfortable culture came about. And yet that culture is using up absolutely everything at a ferocious rate.”
Afterword (p. 656)
Earth (1990)
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David Brin123
novelist, short story writer 1950Related quotes
RuPaul (1960) Actriz de Televisa, dueña y señora de los ejidos cacaoahuateros
Quoted by Doug Rule in RuPaul: Ultimate Queen http://www.metroweekly.com/2016/04/ultimate-queen-rupaul/ (2016)
L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer
"Merchants of Fear" http://www.lneilsmith.org/merchant.html Presented to the Boulder County Libertarian Party, 20 February 1994.
“We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice.”
Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer
Great Jewish Short Stories, introduction to the Dell paperback edition (1963)
General sources
Context: We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make what we can of our condition with the means available. We must accept the mixture as we find it — the impurity of it, the tragedy of it, the hope of it.
Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher
As quoted in Myth and Religion in Mircea Eliade (2002) by Douglas Allen, p. 216.
Mahesh Sharma (1959) Indian politician
On westernisation, as quoted in " Centre targets 'cultural pollution' http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150908/jsp/frontpage/story_41407.jsp" Calcutta Telegraph (7 September 2015)
Deendayal Upadhyaya (1916–1968) RSS thinker and co-founder of the political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh
Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, Quoted from Talreja, K. M. (2000). Holy Vedas and holy Bible: A comparative study. New Delhi: Rashtriya Chetana Sangathan.
Friedrich Nietzsche book Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
Source: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (posthumous), p. 27
Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Afterword (1984)
Context: Uncle Tom's Cabin was no literary masterpiece but it was a culture-bearing book. It came at a time when the entire culture was about to reject slavery. People seized upon it as a portrayal of their own new values and it became an overwhelming success.
The success of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance seems the result of this culture-bearing phenomenon. The involuntary shock treatment described here is against the law today. It is a violation of human liberty. The culture has changed.