R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes

Foresight has been a distinguishing characteristic of all truly great political, religious, and social betterment leaders.

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

There is a Destiny which has the control of our actions, not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature.

There are two futures, the future of desire and the future of fate, and man's reason has never learnt to separate them.

Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.

There is no inevitability in history except as men make it.

The mystery of human destiny is that we are fated, but that we have the freedom to fulfill or not fulfill our fate: realization of our fated destiny depends on us. While inhuman beings like the cockroach realize the entire cycle without going astray because they make no choices.

The future is a choice between Utopia and oblivion.

Man may his fate foresee, but not prevent. 'Tis better to be fortunate than wise.

It is yet to be decided whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered as a blessing or a curse: a blessing or a curse, not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the destiny of unborn millions be involved.

Kelso and Adler's book could start a revolution.

By exploring other worlds we safeguard this one. By itself, I think this fact more than justifies the money our species has spent in sending ships to other worlds. It is our fate to live during one of the most perilous and, at the same time, one of the most hopeful chapters in human history.

He left it in thy power, ordaind thy will By nature free, not over-rul'd by Fate Inextricable, or strict necessity.

The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change in the history of social thought. He interprets history, understands its dynamic, predicts the future, but in addition to predicting it (which would satisfy his scientific obligation), he expresses a revolutionary concept: the world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed. Man ceases to be the slave and tool of his environment and converts himself into the architect of his own destiny.

Nothing has given me more hope recently than to observe how simple conversations give birth to actions that can change lives and restore our faith in the future. There is no more powerful way to initiate significant social change than to start a conversation. When a group of people discover that they share a common concern, that's when the process of change begins.

Luck, mere luck may make even madness wisdom.

I remember reading a book set in the future, it was written in the 1870s projecting to 1920, and this time traveler said you couldn't tell the difference between men and women. He saw what was coming.

Diminish the influence of fate

I suppose it's everyone's fate to be reduced to quaintness by those younger than themselves.

I believe it is quite possible for us to obtain an outer peace at the present time. Historically speaking, when human beings are faced with the choice between destruction and change, they are apt to choose change, and it's about the only thing that will make them choose change. So we have the possibility at the present time to take a different direction in the world - the possibility exists!

Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophise, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,... nor, I think, will the human race.

In the midst of all these innumerable forms of a common protest and universal ill-ease there has grown up one definite body of doctrine whose adherents are called Communists and who desired the total subversion of what had been, hitherto unquestioned among civilized European men, the general doctrines of property and individual freedom.

You never know," Jack said speculatively. "There may come a time when savages like William Hamleigh aren't in power; when the laws protect the ordinary people instead of enslaving them; when the king makes peace instead of war. Think of that - a time when towns in England don't need walls!