“Evolution consists of many great revolutionary events taking place quite independently of man's consciously attempting to bring them about. Man is very vain; he likes to feel that he is responsible for all the favorable things that happen, and he is innocent of all the unfavorable happenings. But all the larger evolutionary patternings seeming favorable or unfavorable to man's conditioned reflexing are transpiring transcendentally to any of man's conscious planning or contriving.”

1960s, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1963)

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Buckminster Fuller171

American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inv… 1895–1983

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James Legge, translation (1893)
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Closing lines
Life on Earth (1979)

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