Utopia Quotes - Page 6

• Utopia is a mixture of childish rationalism and secularized angelism.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Mixtures, Rationalism

  "History and Utopia". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1960.

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• What can oppose the decline of the west is not a resurrected culture but the utopia that is silently contained in the image of its decline.

  Theodor Adorno

  Culture, West, Decline

  Theodor W. Adorno (1982). “Prisms”, p.72, MIT Press

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• Politics are about power; we cannot evade that truth or its consequences. We dream of a better world but it is in Utopia - that is, nowhere.

  D. W Brogan

  Dream, Political, World

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• All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal, but with a near infinite capacity for folly. . . . He draws blueprints for Utopia, but never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand--his own part comic, part tragic, part cussed, but part glorious nature.

  Robert McNamara

  Animal, Men, Hands

  "McNamara in Context" by Errol Morris, www.nytimes.com. July 8, 2009.

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• Even galaxy-spanning anarchist utopias of stupefying full-spectrum civilisational power have turf wars within their unacknowledged militaries.

  Iain Banks

  War, Anarchist, Spectrum

  Iain Banks (2008). “Matter”, Orbit Books

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• Utopia is the process of making a better world, the name for one path history can take, a dynamic, tumultuous, agonizing process, with no end. Struggle forever.

  Kim Stanley Robinson

  Struggle, Names, Forever

  Kim Stanley Robinson (2013). “Pacific Edge: Three Californias”, p.95, Macmillan

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• The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead.

  Milan Kundera

  Attitude, People, Stupidity

  "Siraaj: An Arab Tale". Book by Radwa Ashour and Barbara Romaine, 2007.

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• Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment.... Humanity is in 'final exam' as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in Universe.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Race, Humanity, Finals

  "Critical Path". Book by Buckminster Fuller, 1981.

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• When I die, I want to die in a Utopia that I have helped to build.

  Henry Kuttner

  Want, Dies, I Want To Die

  Henry Kuttner (2015). “The Creature from Beyond Infinity”, p.150, Booklassic

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• You can't believe how pro gay and pro freedom of speech I am. I'm way out beyond anyone on the Left.

  Penn Jillette

  Sex, Believe, Gay

  Biography/Personal Quote, www.imdb.com.

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• The glory of the world is transitory, and we should not measure our lives by it, but by the choice we make to follow our personal legend, to believe in our utopias, and to fight for our dreams.

  Paulo Coelho

  Life, Dream, Believe

  "The Alchemy of Pilgrimage". "On Being" with Krista Tippett, onbeing.org. August 14, 2014.

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• Anyone too undisciplined, too self-righteous or too self-centered to live in the world as it is has a tendency to idealize a world which ought to be. But no matter what political or religious direction such idealists choose, their visions always share one telling characteristic: in their utopias, heavens or brave new worlds, their greatest personal weakness suddenly appears to be a strength.

  David James Duncan

  Religious, Brave New World, Self

  David James Duncan (2010). “The Brothers K”, p.320, Dial Press

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• Utopia is not one of the options.

  David Bergland

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• Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer's paradise, a hunter's Valhalla, an escapist's Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just 'home'. It is all these things but one thing - it is never dull.

  Beryl Markham

  Home, People, Justice

  Beryl Markham (2012). “West with the Night”, p.14, Open Road Media

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• Utopias have their value -- nothing so wonderfully expands the imaginative horizons of human potentialities -- but as guides to conduct they can prove literally fatal.

  Isaiah Berlin

  Horizon, Guides, Prove

  Isaiah Berlin (2013). “The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas”, p.15, Princeton University Press

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• Cycle trails will abound in Utopia.

  H. G. Wells

  Trails, Cycles

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• Utopias are boring. Distopias on the other hand, are interesting.

  Robert Silverberg

  Hands, Interesting, Boring

  FaceBook post by Robert Silverberg from May 16, 2014

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• I play the radio and moon about...and dream of Utopias where its always July the 24th 1935, in the middle of summer forever.

  Zelda Fitzgerald

  Summer, Dream, Moon

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• . . . the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Long Ago, Would Be, Dull

  Arthur C. Clarke (2012). “2001: A Space Odyssey”, p.73, RosettaBooks

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• Our aims in political activism are not, and should not be, to create a perfect utopia. What we seek is more simply to improve the quality of human life while at the same time respecting the natural environment which sustains it: 'Not a heaven on earth but a better earth on earth.' This is not at all a timid agenda, far from it. The work ahead of us is enormous!

  Paul Wellstone

  Perfect, Political, Heaven

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• I abhor the idea of a perfect world. It would bore me to tears.

  Shelby Foote

  Ideas, Perfect, Bored

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• Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of a ll Utopias - boredom.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Boredom, Enemy, Lasts

  Arthur C. Clarke (2012). “Childhood’s End”, p.80, RosettaBooks

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• The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.

  Lois Lowry

  Pain, Past, Unexpected

  Lois Lowry (2014). “The Giver Quartet”, p.152, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I grew up in a utopia, I did. California when I was a child was a child's paradise, I was healthy, well fed, well clothed, well housed. I went to school and there were libraries with all the world in them and after school I played in orange groves and in Little League and in the band and down at the beach and every day was an adventure. . . . I grew up in utopia.

  Kim Stanley Robinson

  Beach, Children, School

  Kim Stanley Robinson (2013). “Pacific Edge: Three Californias”, p.300, Orb Books

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• I think perhaps we want a more conscious life. We're tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We're tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We're tired of always deferring hope till the next generation. We're tired of hearing politicians and priests and cautious reformers... coax us, 'Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia already made; just wiser than you.' For ten thousand years they've said that. We want our Utopia now — and we're going to try our hands at it.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Tired, Sleep, Thinking

  Sinclair Lewis (1924). “Main Street”, p.228, Lulu.com

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