Terence McKenna Quotes

The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.

It is the abiding concern of thinking people to preserve what keeps men human-to save our contact with nature of which we are a part.

We talk of our mastery of nature, which sounds very grand; but the fact is we respectfully adapt ourselves, first, to her ways.

The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.

The universe is a vast system of exchange. Every artery of it is in motion, throbbing with reciprocity, from the planet to the rotting leaf. The vapor climbs the sunbeam, and comes back in blessings upon the exhausted herb. The exhalation of the plant is wafted to the ocean. And so goes on the beautiful commerce of nature. And all because of dissimilarity--because no one thing is sufficient in itself, but calls for the assistance of something else, and repays by a contribution in turn.

The Earth is our mother just turning around, with her trees in the forest and roots underground. Our father above us whose sigh is the wind, paint us a rainbow without any end.

The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.

Nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve. It receives the dominion of man as meekly as the ass on which the Saviour rode.It offers all its kingdoms to man as the raw material which he may mould into what is useful. Man is never weary of working it up.

I think it is important that we all try and be green where it is possible; an awareness of the world around us can never be a bad thing.

We are such spendthrifts with our lives, the trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.

The world is a sacred vessel. It should not be meddled with. It should not be owned. If you try to meddle with it you will ruin it. If you try to own it you will lose it

I’ve become obsessed with the idea of reconciliation, particularly reconciliation with nature but with people too, of course. I think that travel has been a kind of search for that, a pursuit for unity and even an attempt to contribute to a sense of unity.

As long as we relate to the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the fields and the oceans as properties which we can manipulate according to our real or fabricated needs, nature remains opaque, and does not reveal to us its true being.

We can conserve energy and tread more lightly on the Earth while we expand our culture's capacity for joy.

Make friends with nature by working in harmony with her and she will make friends with you.

If there is to be a human future, we must bring ourselves into balanced relationship with one another and the Earth.

It is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.

Putting something called Nature on a pedestal and admiring it from afar does for the environment what patriarchy does for the figure of Woman. It is paradoxical act of sadistic admiration.

We have come to look at our planet as a resource for our species, which is funny when you think that the planet has been around for about five billion years, and Homo sapiens for perhaps one hundred thousand. We have acquired an arrogance about ourselves that I find frightening. We have come to feel that we are so far apart from the rest of nature that we have but to command.

Man masters nature not by force, but by understanding

We still have to learn how to live peacefully, not only with our fellow men but also with nature.

I feel that we should not only maintain gentle, peaceful relations with our fellow human beings bur also that is very important to extend the same kind of attitude toward the natural environment.

People today have forgotten they're really just a part of nature. Yet, they destroy the nature on which our lives depend. They always think they can make something better... They don't know it, but they're losing nature. They don't see that they're going to perish. The most important things for human beings are clean air and clean water.

Everything in nature has found a niche, a perfect harmony of balance. Man need to find his niche, his perfect balance, where he fits in the natural cycle

I also, as I think most people do, have a healthy instinct that if we upset the balance of nature, we are in all probability going to suffer a reaction. With world growth, and population as it is, this reaction must increase.