Élisée Reclus > Quotes

“The horse and the cow, the rabbit and the cat, the deer and the hare, the pheasant and the lark, please us better as friends than as meat.”
― Élisée Reclus

“A sincere person owes it to themselves to expose the frightful barbarity which still prevails in the hidden depths of a society so outwardly well-ordered. Take, for instance, our great cities, the leaders of civilization, especially the most populous, and, in many respects, the first of all — the immense London, which gathers to herself the riches of the world, whose every warehouse is worth a king’s ransom; where are to be found enough, and more than enough, of food and clothing for the needs of the teeming millions that throng her streets in greater numbers than the ants which swarm in the never-ending labyrinth of their subterranean galleries. And yet…beside these untold splendors, want is consuming the vitals of entire populations, and it is only sporadically that the fortunate for whom these hoards are amassed hear, as barely a muffled wailing, the bitter cry which rises eternally from those unseen depths.”
― Élisée Reclus

“The power of kings and emperors has limits, but that of wealth has none at all. The dollar is the master of masters.”
― Élisée Reclus

“Geography is history in place, history is geography in time”
― Élisée Reclus

“In a word, commercial competition, under the paternal aegis of the law, allows the great majority of merchants-— and this fact is attested to in countless medical inquests-— adulterate provisions and drink, sell pernicious substances as wholesome food, and kill by slow poisoning… Let people say what they will, slavery, which abolitionists strove so gallantly to extirpate in America, prevails in another form in every civilized country; for entire populations, placed between the alternatives of death by starvation and toils which they detest, are constrained to choose the latter. And if we would deal frankly with the barbarous society to which we belong, we must acknowledge that murder, albeit disguised under a thousand insidious and scientific forms, still, as in the times of primitive savagery, terminates the majority of lives.”
― Élisée Reclus

“Rumford said a long time ago that “one always finds in nature more than one is looking for.”4 Whether the scholar examines clouds or stones, plants or insects, or whether he goes further and studies the general laws of the world, he continually discovers unexpected wonders everywhere. The”
― Élisée Reclus, Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus

“Some day the quest for friendship will replace the quest for material well-being that sooner or later will have been adequately provided for. Some”
― Élisée Reclus, Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus

“One overriding fact dominates all of modern civilization, the fact that the property of a single person can increase indefinitely, and even, by virtue of almost universal consent, encompass the entire world.”
― Élisée Reclus

“Laissez faire! Let things alone! have said the judges of the camp. Careers are open; and although the field is covered with corpses, although the conqueror stamps on the bodies of the vanquished, although by supply and demand, and the combinations and monopolies in which they result, the greater part of society becomes enslaved to the few, let things along — for thus has decreed fair play. It is by virtue of this beautiful system that a parvenu, without speaking of the great lord who receives counties as his heritage, is able to conquer with ready money thousands of acres, expel those who cultivate his domain, and replace people and their dwellings with wild animals and rare trees. It is thus that a tradesman, more cunning or intelligent, or, perhaps, more favored by luck than his fellows, is enabled to become master of an army of workers, and as often as not to starve them at his pleasure.”
― Élisée Reclus

“every people gives, so to speak, new clothing to the surrounding nature. By means of its fields and roads, by its dwellings and every manner of construction, by the way it arranges the trees and the landscape in general, the populace expresses the character of its own ideals. If it really has a feeling for beauty, it will make nature more beautiful. If, on the other hand, the great mass of humanity should remain as it is today, crude, egoistic and inauthentic, it will continue to mark the face of the earth with its wretched traces. Thus will the poet’s cry of desperation become a reality: “Where can I flee? Nature itself has become hideous.”49”
― Élisée Reclus, Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus

“Un fait capital domine toute la civilisation moderne, le fait que la propriété d'un seul peut s'accroître indéfiniment, et même, en vertu du consentement presque universel, embrasser le monde entier.”
― Élisée Reclus

“If “doubt is the pillow of the wise,” then blissful faith is the pillow of the simpleminded. Once”
― Élisée Reclus, Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus

“L’Homme est la Nature prenant conscience d’elle-même.”
― Élisée Reclus, L'Homme Et La Terre - Livre I

“Ce que les américains ont fait pour le mont Washington, les Suisses se sont hâtés de l'imiter pour le Rigi, au centre de ce panorama si grandiose de leurs lacs et de leurs montagnes. Ils l'ont fait aussi pour l'Utli ; ils le feront pour d'autres monts encore, ils en ramèneront pour ainsi dire les cimes au niveau de la plaine. La locomotive passera de vallée en vallée par-dessus les sommets, comme passe un navire en montant et en descendant comme sur les vagues de la mer. Quant aux monts tels que les hautes cimes des Andes et de l'Himalaya, trop élevées dans la région du froid pour que l'homme puisse y monter directement, le jour viendra où il saura pourtant les atteindre.”
― Élisée Reclus, Histoire d'une montagne

“L'inondation, qui ruine ainsi l'espoir du paysan, est un grand malheur, et pourtant, dans ses eaux redoutées, le ruisseau apporte un trésor pour les années à venir : en détruisant la récolte de l'année présente, il dépose de la boue fertilisante qui nourrira les récoltes futures. Le sol de la plaine, constamment sollicité par le travail du laboureur s'épuiserait bientôt si les rochers de la montagne, triturés et tamisés par le flot, ne s'étalaient en couches sur les campagnes pour en renouveler la fécondité. Ainsi que le montrent les sondages géologiques, la terre végétale et le sous-sol tout entier sont des alluvions successivement amenées de siècle en siècle et déposées sur les assises de la roche : aucune plante n'aurait pu germer dans la vallée si la montagne ne se délitait pas sans cesse, et si le ruisseau n'employait pas chaque année ces débris à fournir un nouvel aliment à la végétation de ses deux rives.”
― Élisée Reclus, Histoire d'un ruisseau - Histoire d'une montagne

“Non è una digressione menzionare gli orrori della guerra in connessione con il massacro delle bestie ed i banchetti di carne. La dieta degli individui è in stretta relazione con il loro modo di agire.
Sangue chiama sangue”
― Élisée Reclus

“Between those who command and those who obey, and whose degradation deepens from generation to generation, there is no possibility of friendship. The virtues are transformed; brotherly frankness is destroyed; independence becomes a crime; above is either pitying condescension or haughty contempt, below either envious admiration or hidden hate. Let each of us recall the past and ask ourselves in all sincerity the question: “Who are the individuals in whose society we have experienced the most pleasure?” Are they the personages who have “honored” us with their conversation, or the humble with whom we have “deigned” to associate? Are they not rather our equals, those whose looks neither implore nor command, and whom we may love with open hearts without afterthought or reserve”
― Élisée Reclus

“so the study of the ways of animals will help us to delve more deeply into the life sciences, increase our knowledge of the nature of things, and expand our love.”
― Élisée Reclus, Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus