Derrick Jensen Quotes

Quotes about:

Children Culture Giving Hope Lying Violence

Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

Derrick Jensen

Civilization, Doe, Done

"Endgame, Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization". Book by Derrick Jensen, January 4, 2011.

43 Copy quote
It's no wonder we don't defend the land where we live. We don't live here. We live in television programs and movies and books and with celebrities and in heaven and by rules and laws and abstractions created by people far away and we live anywhere and everywhere except in our particular bodies on this particular land at this particular moment in these particular circumstances.

Derrick Jensen

Book, Law, Land

Derrick Jensen (2011). “Endgame, Volume 2: Resistance”, p.242, Seven Stories Press

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If your homeland were invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?

Derrick Jensen

Cutting, Air, Water

Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith (2013). “Earth at Risk: Building a Resistance Movement to Save the Planet”, p.254, PM Press

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We have been too kind to those who are killing the planet. We have been inexcusably, unforgivably, insanely kind.

Derrick Jensen

Environmental, Kind, Killing

Derrick Jensen (2012). “The Derrick Jensen Reader: Writings on Environmental Revolution”, p.198, Seven Stories Press

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We must learn how to think like the planet.

Derrick Jensen

Thinking, Planets

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A culture that values production over life values the wrong things, because it will produce things at the expense of living beings, human or otherwise.

Derrick Jensen

Culture, Being Human, Produce

Derrick Jensen (2000). “A Language Older Than Words”

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Question four: What book would you give to every child? Answer: I wouldn't give them a book. Books are part of the problem: this strange belief that a tree has nothing to say until it is murdered, its flesh pulped, and then (human) people stain this flesh with words. I would take children outside and put them face to face with chipmunks, dragonflies, tadpoles, hummingbirds, stones, rivers, trees, crawdads. That said, if you're going to force me to give them a book, it would be The Wind In The Willows, which I hope would remind them to go outside.

Derrick Jensen

Children, Book, Wind

56 Copy quote
There is a language older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of bodies, of body on body, wind on snow, rain on trees, wave on stone. It is the language of dream, gesture, symbol, memory. We have forgotten this language. We do not even remember that it exists.

Derrick Jensen

Inspiring, Dream, Memories

Derrick Jensen (2004). “A Language Older Than Words”, p.2, Chelsea Green Publishing

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All we want, whether we are honeybees, salmon, trash-collecting ants, ponderosa pines, coyotes, human beings, or stars, is to love and be loved, to be accepted, cherished, and celebrated simply for being who we are. Is that so very difficult?

Derrick Jensen

Stars, Salmon, Coyotes

33 Copy quote
Stand with me. Stand and fight. I am one, and we would be two. Two more might join and we would be four. When four more join we will be eight. We will be eight people fighting whom others will join. And then more people. And more. Stand and fight.

Derrick Jensen

Fighting, Eight, Two

Derrick Jensen (2010). “Lives Less Valuable: A Novel”, p.200, PM Press

37 Copy quote
To be clear, civilization is not the same as society. Civilization is a specific, hierarchical organization based on 'power over.' Dismantling civilization, taking down that power structure, does not mean the end of all social order. It should ultimately mean more justice, more local control, more democracy, and more human rights, not less.

Derrick Jensen

Mean, Rights, Order

"Commonly Asked Questions". deepgreenresistancenewyork.org.

29 Copy quote
I think a lot of us are increasingly recognizing that the dominant culture is killing the planet.

Derrick Jensen

Thinking, Culture, Killing

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Surely by now there can be few here who still believe the purpose of government is to protect us from the destructive activities of corporations. At last most of us must understand that the opposite is true: that the primary purpose of government is to protect those who run the economy from the outrage of injured citizens.

Derrick Jensen

Running, Believe, Government

33 Copy quote
I've since come to understand the reason school lasts thirteen years. It takes that long to sufficiently break a child's will. It is not easy to disconnect children's wills, to disconnect them from their own experiences of the world in preparation for the lives of painful employment they will have to endure.

Derrick Jensen

Children, School, Years

Derrick Jensen (2004). “A Language Older Than Words”, p.102, Chelsea Green Publishing

29 Copy quote
I am only so beautiful as the character of my relationships, only so rich as I enrich those around me, only so alive as I enliven those I greet.

Derrick Jensen

Beautiful, Character, Alive

Derrick Jensen (2004). “A Language Older Than Words”, p.127, Chelsea Green Publishing

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All the mega corporations on the planet make their obscene profits off the labor and suffering of others, with complete disregard for the effects on the workers, environment, and future generations. We have a straightforward proposal: if they want public money, we want public control. It's that simple.

Derrick Jensen

Simple, Suffering Of Others, Want

27 Copy quote
For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.

Derrick Jensen

Lying, Deceit, Way

Derrick Jensen (2006). “Endgame”, p.404, Seven Stories Press

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Where will you drive your own picket stake? Where will you choose to make your stand? Give me a threshold, a specific point at which you will finally stop running, at which you will finally fight back.

Derrick Jensen

Running, Fighting, Giving

Derrick Jensen (2011). “Endgame, Volume 2: Resistance”, p.359, Seven Stories Press

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In order to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves.

Derrick Jensen

Lying, Order, Way

Derrick Jensen (2006). “Endgame”, p.404, Seven Stories Press

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You can rarely prove something to someone who does not want to see it proven, and even more to the point, you can almost never prove something to someone who has financial or ideological reasons to not see it proven.

Derrick Jensen

Doe, Want, Financial

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Within this culture wealth is measured by one's ability to consume and destroy.

Derrick Jensen

Culture, Wealth, Ability

Derrick Jensen (2011). “Endgame, Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization”, p.106, Seven Stories Press

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Many Indians have told me that the most basic difference between Western and indigenous ways of being is that Westerners view the world as dead, and not as filled with speaking, thinking, feeling subjects as worthy and valuable as themselves.

Derrick Jensen

Thinking, Views, Differences

Derrick Jensen (2004). “The Culture of Make Believe”, p.39, Chelsea Green Publishing

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A wonderful thing happens when you give up on hope, which is that you realize you never needed it in the first place. You realize that giving up on hope doesn't kill you, nor did it make you less effective. In fact it made you more effective, because you ceased relying on someone or something else to solve your problems - you ceased hoping your problems somehow get solved, through the magical assistance of God, the Great Mother, the Sierra Club, valiant tree-sitters, brave salmon, or even the Earth itself - and you just began doing what's necessary to solve your problems yourself.

Derrick Jensen

Mother, Hope, Giving Up

"Endgame, Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization". Book by Derrick Jensen, 2011.

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Those in power have made it so we have to pay simply to exist on the planet. We have to pay for a place to sleep, and we have to pay for food. If we don't, people with guns come and force us to pay. That's violent.

Derrick Jensen

Sleep, Gun, People

9 Copy quote
If you only had a limited time to life (which is of course the case), how would you spend your time?

Derrick Jensen

Limited Time, Cases, Courses

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Born: December 19, 1960
Occupation: Author
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