Jared Diamond Quotes & Sayings (Page 3)

“The United States has long thought of itself as the land of infinite plenty, and historically we did have abundant resources. But now we are gradually exhausting our fisheries, our topsoil, our water. On top of that, we're coming to the end of world resources.”

“Twenty years ago, you might have been pessimistic and said there's no hope. But these days, some of our very biggest companies are acting remarkably cleanly. And in some cases, although not all cases, the CEOs are the driving forces behind that.”

“Eurasia ended up with the most domesticated animal species in part because it's the world's largest land mass and offered the most wild species to begin with.”

“I've worked very hard in this book to keep the lines of communication open. I don't want to turn someone away from this information for partisan political reasons.”

“No government is here forever. And there are other forces - the most potent force in our society, in fact, big business - doing good for the environment.”

“We can't manipulate some stars while maintaining other stars as controls; we can't start and stop ice ages, and we can't experiment with designing and evolving dinosaurs.”

“Federal elections happen every two years in this country. Presidential elections every four years. And four years just isn't long enough to dismantle all the environmental laws we've got in this country.”

“Thousands of years ago, humans domesticated every possible large wild mammal species fulfilling all those criteria and worth domesticating, with the result that there have been no valuable additions of domestic animals in recent times, despite the efforts of modern science.”

“I personally am not conscious of my accent.”

“Some people have much more pull than other people. But when I say that the public has ultimate responsibility, I'm not saying it in a moral sense. I'm just saying it in the sense of what is it that's really going to bring change.”