Derrick Jensen

Civilization is not and can never be sustainable.

— Derrick Jensen

We must learn how to think like the planet.

— Derrick Jensen

A language Older Than Words

— Derrick Jensen

Civilization can never be sustainable.

— Derrick Jensen

All writers are propagandists.

— Derrick Jensen

Love does not imply pacifism.

— Derrick Jensen

Higher education is everybody's rite

— Derrick Jensen

Forests precede us and deserts dog our heels.

— Derrick Jensen

“I had broken the most basic commandment of our culture: Thou shalt pretend there is nothing wrong.”

— Derrick Jensen

We have a need for enchantment that is as deep and devoted as our need for food and water.

— Derrick Jensen

“A friend asked, "If increased awareness means less happiness, why bother?" No answer.”

— Derrick Jensen

“We've been making love these past two days by talking and I want for our bodies to join the conversation.”

— Derrick Jensen

There is always money to kill people. There is never enough money for life affirming ends.

— Derrick Jensen

Writing is really very easy. Tap a vein and bleed onto the page. Everything else is just technical.

— Derrick Jensen

Premise Eight: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system.

— Derrick Jensen

In order to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves.

— Derrick Jensen

To believe Christianity stands in opposition to slavery is at best to think anachronistically and at worst to not understand Christianity.

— Derrick Jensen

If the world is presented as resources to be exploited, then, more than likely, you're going to exploit the world.

— Derrick Jensen

We can follow the example of those who remembered that the role of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive…

— Derrick Jensen

For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are…

— Derrick Jensen

The task we all face as human beings ... is to find and become who we are. The task teachers face is…

— Derrick Jensen

I no longer see Descartes' statement as arbitrary. It is representative of our culture's narcissism. This narcissism leads to a disturbing disrespect…

— Derrick Jensen

Where will you drive your own picket stake? Where will you choose to make your stand? Give me a threshold, a specific…

— Derrick Jensen

My audience consists mainly of people who already recognize how bad this culture is, and I want to push them to become…

— Derrick Jensen

Yes, it's vital to make lifestyle choices to mitigate damage caused by being a member of industrialized civilization, but to assign primary…

— Derrick Jensen

If we hope to stem the mass destruction that inevitably attends our economic system (and to alter the sense of entitlement -…

— Derrick Jensen

“Isolation leads to psychopathology. Isolated from the rest of nature, isolated from each other by walls of fear, isolated from our own…

— Derrick Jensen

But what, precisely, is hope? At a talk I gave last spring, someone asked me to define it. I turned the question…

— Derrick Jensen

You can rarely prove something to someone who does not want to see it proven, and even more to the point, you…

— Derrick Jensen

There is a language older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of bodies, of body on body, wind…

— Derrick Jensen

“The fundamental difference between civilized and indigenous ways of being is that for even the most open-minded of the civilized, listening to…

— Derrick Jensen

“This book is about fighting back. The dominant culture -civilization- is killing the planet, and it is long past time for those…

— Derrick Jensen

“No anesthetic was necessary for the people who ordered the killings; they had the misleading language of technocratic bureaucracy to distance them…

— Derrick Jensen

“We were not meant for this. We were meant to live and love and play and work and even hate more simply…

— Derrick Jensen

“So while this is a book about fighting back, in the end this is a book about love. The songbirds and the…

— Derrick Jensen

“The anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday looked at data from over a hundred cultures as to the prevalence of rape, and divided them…

— Derrick Jensen

Grades are a problem. On the most general level, they're an explicit acknowledgment that what you're doing is insufficiently interesting or rewarding…

— Derrick Jensen

“I am in this same river. I can't much help it. I admit it: I'm racist. The other night I saw a…

— Derrick Jensen

“I said that I feel bad whenever I drive, because I’m adding to global warming. The Maori nodded agreement. So did Jeannette.…

— Derrick Jensen

“A primary purpose of school - and this is true for our culture's science and religion as well - is to lead…

— Derrick Jensen