Derrick Jensen Quotes

As long as man labors for a physical existence, though an act of necessity almost, he is yet natural; it is life, though that of this world, for which he instinctively works.

Greed is a basic part of animal nature. Being against it is like being against breathing or eating. It means nothing.

Most of the vices and mortal sins condemned today correspond to inclinations that were purely adaptive or at least harmless in primitive man.

Self-preservation is the first principle of our nature.

The policy of man consists, at first, in endeavoring to arrive at a state equal to that of animals, whom nature has furnished with food, clothing, and shelter.

A human being is primarily a bag for putting food into.

We must have been hunters and gatherers but some of us were just waiters and hopers.

In the general course of human nature, A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.

What do people want? Well, you really can’t talk about wants until you talk about needs.

By nature, by necessity itself, [primitive man] is encyclopedic, while civilized man finds himself confined in the infinitely small regions of specialization.

Man tends always to satisfy his needs and desires with the least possible exertion.

By all odds, earliest man, so naked to the elements and to deadly enemies, should have existed in a state of constant shock. We find him instead the only lighthearted being in a deadly serious universe.... He alone, with childish carelessness, tinkered and played, and exerted himself more in the pursuit of superfluities than of necessities. Yet the tinkering and playing, and the fascination with the nonessential, were a chief source of the inventiveness which enabled man to prevail over better-equipped and more-purposeful animals.

Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.

Every living being on earth loves life above all else. The smallest insect, whose life lasts only an instant, tries to escape from any danger in order to live a moment longer. And the desire to live is most developed in man.

Many who would not take the last cookie would take the last lifeboat.

That's human nature. Nobody does anything until it's too late.

I live, which is the main point.

Hunger never saw bad bread.

Human beings are amazing at finding ways to waste their own time.

Every other creature on the planet is doing its best. Only human beings hesitate about that.

We were born to run; we were born because we run.

Humanity is constitutionally lazy.

I think it's one of the most natural things for any human to do is to be able to run because it's that flight or fight reaction you have. You either fight or you run away. It's just a natural way for us to move.

The habit of taking the line of least resistance makes all rivers and some men crooked.

When grubbing for necessities man is still an animal. He becomes uniquely human when he reaches out for the superfluous and extravagant.