Murray Bookchin Quotes

It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed to work in the past.

It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws, but to break up both and make new ones.

A radical inner transformation and rise to a new level of consciousness might be the only real hope we have in the current global crisis brought on by the dominance of the Western mechanistic paradigm.

There is no silver bullet. I know people in Washington want grand solutions for everything.

This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution.

No given measure and no given set of measures will work a perfect cure for any serious evil.

I think the discussions have been superficial and emotional. What we need are conversations that have real depth to them. Talking about what's going to happen in the first 60 or 90 days of a presidency just doesn't get it done for me.

So complex are all the ingredients that cause gang membership that it seems virtually impossible to isolate one solution that can address them all and thereby manufacture a hope for the future upon which these kids can rely.

We keep saying, 'No more 'band aid' solutions.'

Broken institutions are an opportunity rather than a time to go home.

There's no cultural revolution by mistake.

I think very often problems are so big, people approach problems from the bottom up: 'If only I do this little bit, then hopefully there will be some sort of snowball effect that will be bigger and bigger.' I'm much more in favor of the top-down approach to problem-solving.

This is what a crisis does: It makes you question the status quo. That doesn't mean that after a crisis we move into some kind of utopia. But it is an opportunity for political change.

You cannot get a new economy without a new society.

I strongly believe that at this point in America's history, we need a president that will not just continue, even with a new face and with some changes and with some maverick aspects, who will not just continue, basically, the policies we have been following in recent years. I think we need a transformational figure. I think we need a president who is a generational change.

There must exist a paradigm, a practical model for social change that includes an understanding of ways to transform consciousness that are linked to efforts to transform structures.

The Venus Project is not about new cities or new architecture. It's about a way of thinking

The belief that it is useless to employ partial and palliative means against radical evils, because they only remedy them in part, is an article of faith never preached unsuccessfully by meanness to simplicity, but it is none the less absurd.

We have to think in a very different sense than the way we think now. We think in terms of quick fixes, that solutions will come out of a few protest demonstrations, and calling upon the government to do something. And we can keep trying to do that, and it won't work.

The man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.

I do study Marcel Proust, for multiple technical virtuosities but also his swerve, as you say, between characters and in scenes. Certain films can help for that, too, in terms of understanding how multiple conversations at a table, or in a room, can take place and remain separate, and dissonant, and also gather themselves, accidentally, into a collective rhythm and an affect.

Reaction is what changes your understanding of the world.

We have to see today in light of the transition, say, from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and from agriculture to industry, and from industry to post-industry. We're in an epoch transition.

A person of definite character and purpose who comprehends our way of thought is sure to exert power over us. He cannot altogether be resisted; because, if he understands us, he can make us understand him, through the word, the look, or other symbol.

Change of ministers amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and extravagances are pursued. It signifies not who is minister. The defect lies in the system. The foundation and superstructure of the government is bad. Prop it as you please, it continually sinks and ever will.