Bushmen Quotes

• Fish have water, the bushmen of the Kalahari have sand, and Houstonians have interior décor.

  Simon Hoggart

  Texas, Water, Sand

  Simon Hoggart (1990). “America: A User's Guide”, HarperCollins

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• Richard Lee calculated that a Bushman child will be carried a distance of 4,900 miles before he begins to walk on his own. Since, during this rhythmic phase, he will be forever naming the contents of his territory, it is impossible he will not become a poet.

  Bruce Chatwin

  Children, Distance, Forever

  12 Copy quote

• The greatest mystery about a human being is not his reaction to sex or praise, but the manner in which he contrives to put in twenty-four hours a day. It is this which puzzles the longshoreman about the clerk, the Londoner about the bushman.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Sex, Clerks, Twenties

  Sinclair Lewis (1995). “Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott”, p.237, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• To a mathematician the eleventh means only a single unit: to the bushman who cannot count further than his ten fingers it is an incalculable myriad.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Mean, Science, Fingers

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Pygmalion, Arms and The Man, Saint Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion”, p.311, e-artnow

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can't live like a Bushman or an Aborigine anymore, so they've got to rethink the whole basis of how they're going to live. Permaculture helps you do that easily.

  Bill Mollison

  Helping, Permaculture, Bases

  "Permaculture: Design For Living". Interview with Alan AtKisson, www.context.org. 1991.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• If someone starts talking about pride today I'm going to vomit... The Apache nation had pride and look where they are. The bushmen of Kalahari have pride and look where they are.

  George Hook

  Sports, Pride, Talking

  7 Copy quote

• It is a mistake to assume that government must necessarily last forever. The institution marks a certain stage of civilization-is natural to a particular phase of human development. It is not essential, but incidental. As amongst the Bushmen we find a state antecedent to government, so may there be one in which it shall have become extinct.

  Herbert Spencer

  Mistake, Civilization, Government

  Herbert Spencer (1873). “Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed”, p.24

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you ask an Auin Bushman what realty happens at the puberty ceremonials, he will tell you, "We dance." In the initiation customs of all peoples the dances play an especially important part. The dance is the center of wedding festivities.

  Curt Sachs

  Dance, Play, Dancing

  6 Copy quote

• I don't want to take a pill. Go to Africa, go follow some bushman around. He's being chased by a lion. That's stress. You're not going to find a pygmy on Paxil, I'll tell you that right now.

  Ellen DeGeneres

  Funny, Stress, Humor

  "Ellen DeGeneres: Here and Now". www.imdb.com. 2003.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I gave one permaculture course in Botswana, and now my students are out in the bloody desert in Namibia teaching Bushmen - whose language nobody can speak - to be very good permaculture people.

  Bill Mollison

  Teaching, People, Desert

  "Permaculture: Design For Living". Interview with Alan AtKisson, www.context.org. 1991.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source