The Democracy of Species Quotes

“When we rely deeply on other lives, there is an urgency to protect them. Our ancestors, who had so few material possessions, devoted a great of attention to this question, while we are drowning in possessions scarcely give it a thought.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species

“Trying to understand the life of another being or another ecosystem so unlike our own is often humbling and, for many scientists, is a deeply spiritual pursuit.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species

“And the code might ask of any harvest, including energy, that our purpose be worthy of the harvest.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species

“Whether we are digging wild leeks or going to the mall, how do we consume in a way that does justice to the lives we take?”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species

“I remember the words of Bill Tall Bull, a Cheyenne elder. As a young person, I spoke to him with a heavy heart, lamenting that I had no native language with which to speak to the plants and the places that I love. 'They love to hear the old language,' he said, 'it's true.' 'But,' he said, with fingers on his lips, 'You don't have to speak it here.' 'If you speak it hear,' he said, patting his chest, 'They will hear you.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species

“The arrogance of English is that the only way to be animate, to be worthy of respect and moral concern, is to be human.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species

“When we tell them that the tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple tree an object; we put a barrier between us”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species

“...humor is deliberately built into the syntax. Even a small slip of the tongue can convert "We need more firewood" to "Take your clothes off.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species

“We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world. We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don't have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can hold our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgement of the rest of the earth's beings.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species

“Taking coal buried deep in the earth, for which we must inflict irreparable damage, violates every precept of the code [of honorable harvest]. By no stretch of the imagination is coal 'given to us'. We have to wound the land and water to gouge it from Mother Earth.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species

“Cautionary stories of the consequences of taking too much are ubiquitous in Native cultures, but it’s hard to recall a single one in English. Perhaps this helps to explain why we seem to be caught in a trap of over-consumption, which is as destructive to ourselves as to those we consume.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species

“A bay is a noun only if water is dead. When a bay is a noun, it is defined by humans, trapped between its shores and contained by the word. but the verb wiikwegamaa – to be a bay – releases the water from bondage and lets it live. ‘To be a bay’ holds the wonder that, for this moment, the living water has decided to shelter itself between these shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species