Ronald Wright Quotes

• If civilization is to survive, it must live on the interest, not the capital, of nature.

  Ronald Wright

  Nature, Civilization, Interest

  Ronald Wright (2010). “A Short History Of Progress”, p.129, Canongate Books

  47 Copy quote

• Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up.

  Ronald Wright

  Inspirational, History Repeats Itself, Historian

  Ronald Wright (2010). “A Short History Of Progress”, p.107, Canongate Books

  19 Copy quote

• Like all creatures, humans have made their way in the world by trial and error. Unlike other creatures we have a presence so colossal that error is a luxury we can no longer afford. The world has grown too small to forgive us any big mistakes.

  Ronald Wright

  Mistake, Luxury, Errors

  Ronald Wright (2010). “A Short History Of Progress”, p.3, Canongate Books

  10 Copy quote

• the most compelling reason for reforming our system is that the system is in no one's interest. It is a suicide machine.

  Ronald Wright

  Suicide, Compelling Reason, Machines

  15 Copy quote

• Capitalism lures us onward like the mechanical hare before the greyhounds,
  insisting that the economy is infinite and sharing therefore irrelevant. Just enough greyhounds catch a
  real hare now and then to keep the others running till they drop. In the past it was only the poor who
  lost this game; now it is the planet.

  Ronald Wright

  Running, Real, Past

  Ronald Wright (2010). “A Short History Of Progress”, p.124, Canongate Books

  10 Copy quote

• Like most problems with technology, pollution is a problem of scale. The biosphere might have been able to tolerate our dirty old friends coal and oil if we burned them gradually, but how long can it withstand a blaze of consumption so frenzied that the dark size of this planet glows like a fanned ember in the night of space.

  Ronald Wright

  Dirty, Dark, Night

  Ronald Wright (2010). “A Short History Of Progress”, p.7, Canongate Books

  10 Copy quote

• Even today, some opt for the comforts of mystification, preferring to believe that the wonders of the ancient world were built by Atlanteans, gods, or space travelers, instead of by thousands toiling in the sun. Such thinking robs our forerunners of their due, and us of their experience. Because then one can believe whatever one likes about the past - without having to confront the bones, potsherds, and inscriptions which tell us that people all over the world, time and again, have made similar advances and mistakes.

  Ronald Wright

  Mistake, Believe, Thinking

  Ronald Wright (2006). “An Illustrated Short History of Progress”

  6 Copy quote

• America seemed a virgin land waiting for civilization. But Europe had made the wilderness it found; America was not a virgin, she was a widow.

  Ronald Wright

  Europe, Land, Civilization

  Ronald Wright (2005). “Stolen Continents: Five Hundered Years of Conquest and Resistance in the Americas”, p.91, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

• Societies that do not eat people are fascinated by those that do.

  Ronald Wright

  People, History, Society

  Ronald Wright (1986). “On Fiji Islands”, New York, N.Y. : Viking

  6 Copy quote

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