Robin > Robin's Quotes

“We have to create culture, don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you're giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.”
― Terence McKenna

“If you don't have a plan, you become part of somebody else's plan.”
― Terence McKenna

“It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.”
― David Attenborough

“I don’t know [why we're here]. People sometimes say to me, ‘Why don’t you admit that the humming bird, the butterfly, the Bird of Paradise are proof of the wonderful things produced by Creation?’ And I always say, well, when you say that, you’ve also got to think of a little boy sitting on a river bank, like here, in West Africa, that’s got a little worm, a living organism, in his eye and boring through the eyeball and is slowly turning him blind. The Creator God that you believe in, presumably, also made that little worm. Now I personally find that difficult to accommodate…”
― David Attenborough

“To restore stability to our planet, therefore, we must restore its biodiversity, the very thing we have removed. It is the only way out of this crisis that we ourselves have created. We must rewild the world!”
― David Attenborough

“We only know a tiny proportion about the complexity of the natural world. Wherever you look, there are still things we don’t know about and don’t understand. [...] There are always new things to find out if you go looking for them.”
― David Attenborough

“The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the earth.”
― David Attenborough, Life on Earth

“Take it easy. Nothing you do matters as much as you think. Your greatest achievements aren’t yours at all, they’re accidents and jokes. You’re a puppet, the universe does the work, and it gets the most done when you’re moving the least. Surrender, flow, relax. Don’t be hard on yourself, don’t put pressure on yourself, life is just a chain of experiments and results, and you’ll be perfect when you’re dead.”
― Dan Harmon

“The cowards never started and the weak died along the way. That leaves us, ladies and gentlemen. Us.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog

“The single easiest way to find out how you feel about someone. Say goodbye.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog

“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”
― Phil Knight (original quote by George S Patton), Shoe Dog

“I’d tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

“Life is growth. You grow or you die.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog

“We often talk of saving the planet, but the truth is that we must do these things to save ourselves. With or without us, the wild will return.”
― David Attenborough, A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future

“We moved from being a part of nature to being apart from nature.”
― David Attenborough, A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future

“We have come as far as we have because we are the cleverest creatures to have ever lived on Earth. But if we are to continue to exist, we will require more than intelligence. We will require wisdom.”
― David Attenborough, A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future

“When someone seeks," said Siddhartha, "then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

“What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“The industrialist was horrified to find the fisherman lying beside his boat, smoking a pipe. -  Why aren’t you fishing?, said the industrialist. -  Because I have caught enough fish for the day. -  Why don’t you catch some more? -  What would I do with them? -  Earn more money. Then you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and catch more fish. That would bring you money to buy nylon nets, so more fish, more money. Soon you would have enough to buy two boats even a fleet of boats. Then you could be rich like me. - What would I do then? -  Then you could sit back and enjoy life. -  What do you think I’m doing now?”
― John Lane, Timeless Simplicity: Creative Living in a Consumer Society