Source: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005), Chapter "Why do some societies make disastrous decisions", section "Disastrous values" (Penguin Books, 2011, pages 432-433, ISBN 978-0-241-95868-1.
“[.. ] the values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs.”
Cited by Tim Flannery, "Learning from the past to change our future" http://science.sciencemag.org/content/307/5706/45.full, Science, volume 307, 7 January 2005, page 45.
Source: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)
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Jared Diamond 33
American scientist and author 1937Related quotes
Karl Schroeder
(1962) Author. Technology consultant
Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 23 (pp. 255-256).
“[…] knowledge is our greatest wealth and the love of others the most beautiful human value.”
Jacques Dubochet
(1942) Nobel prize winning Swiss chemist
French: [...] la connaissance est notre plus grande richesse et l'amour d'autrui la plus belle valeur humaine.
Source, in French: Jacques Dubochet, Parcours, Éditions Rosso, 2018, page 9 (ISBN 9782940560097).
“The greatest victory in life is to rise above the material things that we once valued most.”
Source: The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey
“Money is the source of the greatest vice, & that Nation which is most rich, is most wicked.”
Frances Burney
(1752–1840) English writer
The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, vol. 1, p. 48, journal entry, November 17, 1768.
Letters
Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 373.
Context: Finally, attention must be drawn to one of the most important consequences of colonialism on African development, and that is the stunting effect on Africans as a physical species. Colonialism created conditions which led not just to periodic famine but to chronic undernourishment, malnutrition, and deterioration in the physique of the African people. If such a statement sounds wildly extravagant, it is only because bourgeois propaganda has conditioned even Africans to believe that malnutrition and starvation were the natural lot of Africans from time immemorial. A black child with a transparent rib cage, huge head, bloated stomach, protruding eyes, and twigs as arms and legs was the favorite poster of the large British charitable operation known as Oxfam. The poster represented a case of kwashiorkor—extreme malignant malnutrition. Oxfam called upon the people of Europe to save starving African and Asian children from kwashiorkor and such ills. Oxfam never bothered their consciences by telling them that capitalism and colonialism created the starvation, suffering, and misery of the child in the first place. There is an excellent study of the phenomenon of hunger on a world scale by a Brazilian scientist, Josue de Castro. It incorporates considerable data on the food and health conditions among Africans in their independent pre-colonial state or in societies untouched by capitalist pressures; and it then makes comparisons with colonial conditions. The study convincingly indicates that African diet was previously more varied, being based on a more diversified agriculture than was possible under colonialism. In terms of specific nutritional deficiencies, those Africans who suffered most under colonialism were those who were brought most fully into the colonial economy: namely, the urban workers.
"Me and My House" in Harper's (November 1955); republished in Notes of a Native Son (1955)
Source: The Fire Next Time
