“There is no Eden. There never was. What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five died of disease before the age of five? When one woman in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan was 40, as it was in America a century ago? When plagues swept across the planet, killing millions in a stroke. Was it when millions starved to death? Is that when it was Eden?”

— Michael Crichton

Environmentalism as a Religion (2003)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There is no Eden. There never was. What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortalit…" by Michael Crichton?

Michael Crichton 121

American author, screenwriter, film producer 1942–2008

Related quotes

“I was worth about over a million dollars when I was twenty-three and over ten million dollars when I was twenty-four, and over a hundred million dollars when I was twenty-five and it wasn't that important because I never did it for the money.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Interview in the PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires (1996)
1990s

“IT was the time of day when Lake Eden residents decided it was too late for a breakfast cookie and too early for a lunch cookie.”

Joanne Fluke book Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

Source: Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

“It's a terrible paradox that we march toward a virtual Eden when there is still time to reverse pollution and find it again in nature.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

(21 December 2017) http://lorinrichards.weebly.com

“The second Death, that never dies,
That cannot die, when time is dead”

Lionel Johnson (1867–1902) English poet

The Dark Angel (1895)
Context: p>I fight thee, in the Holy Name!
Yet, what thou dost, is what God saith:
Tempter! should I escape thy flame,
Thou wilt have helped my soul from Death:The second Death, that never dies,
That cannot die, when time is dead:
Live Death, wherein the lost soul cries,
Eternally uncomforted.</p

“When the past dies, there is mourning, but when the future dies our imaginations are compelled to carry it on.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Source: Marilyn

“When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease - of the joy that kills.”

Kate Chopin book The Story of an Hour

Source: The Story of an Hour

“When a man writes a romance, the woman dies. When a woman writes one, it ends all tidy and sweet.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: What Happens in London

“The first lesson that you must learn is that, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

When Churchill was in opposition after 1945, he led the Conservative Party in a debate about the Health Service. As he listened to Aneurin Bevan’s opening speech, he called for some statistics about infant mortality … [which were] supplied, copiously and accurately, by Iain Macleod, then working in the back rooms of the Conservative Research Department. But, in his speech, Churchill made only one bold and sweeping use … [of Macleod’s detailed research]. Encountering MacLeod afterward, Churchill made the above statement. As cited in The Life of Politics (1968), Henry Fairlie, Methuen, pp. 203-204.
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Context: I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is that, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic.

“These are strange times, when we are healthier than ever but more anxious about our health. According to all the standard benchmarks, we've never had it so healthy. Longevity in the West continues to rise -- a typical British woman can now expect to live to seventy-nine, eight years more than just half a century ago, and over double the life expectation when Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837. Break the figures down a bit and you find other encouraging signs even in the recent past; in 1950, the UK experienced 26,000 infant deaths; within half a century that had fallen by 80 per cent. Deaths in the UK from infectious diseases nearly halved between 1970 and 1992; between 1971 and 1991 stroke deaths dropped by 40 per cent and coronary heart disease fatalities by 19 per cent -- and those are diseases widely perceived to be worsening.”

Roy Porter (1946–2002) British historian

Introduction, lead paragraph; as cited nytimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/porter-benefit.html 1998
The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (1997)

“This is nine! Nine! This is nine! Nine! This is ten! Ten! We have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead! This is six! Six! … Eighteen! This is now eighteen! Take cover when the siren sounds! This is four! Four! … Five! This is five! Ignore the siren! Even if you leave this room, you can never leave this room! Eight! This is eight!”

Stephen King book Everything's Eventual

Disembodied voice of Room 1408, over the telephone
Pages 396–397[Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales, 1st edition, 2002, Scribner, New York, ISBN 0-7432-3515-0, 459 pages]
Everything's Eventual (2002), "1408"

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Michael Crichton 121

Related quotes

Related topics